A substantially revised and updated edition of the author’s classic 1987 book, ‘The Polish Way: A Thousand-Year History of the Poles and their Culture’, which has been out of print since 2001.
No nation’s history has been so distorted as that of Poland. In 1797 Russia, Prussia and Austria divided the country up among themselves, expunging Poland’s sovereignty from history, casting it as a backwater that needed civilising. But as Adam Zamoyski’s thrilling history shows, the country they had wiped off the map had been one of Europe’s largest and most varied in cultural and religious traditions, with one of the boldest constitutional experiments ever attempted. Its destruction initiated a series of struggles that culminated in the two world wars and the Cold War. Today, Poland has been restored to its rightful place as one of the most vigorous nations of Europe, and is perfectly captured in this full revision Adam Zamoyski’s classic ‘The Polish Way’.