Recovering Solidarity: Lessons from Poland’s Unfinished Revolution

In Recovering Solidarity, Gerald J. Beyer provides a contextualized theological and ethical treatment of the idea of solidarity. He focuses particularly on the Polish Solidarity movement of the 1980s and the ways in which that movement originally embodied but, during the country’s transformation to a capitalist democratic society, soon abandoned this important aspect of the Catholic social tradition. Using Poland as a case study, Beyer explores the obstacles to promoting an ethic of solidarity in contemporary capitalist societies and attempts to demonstrate how the moral revolution of the early Solidarity movement can be revived, both in its country of origin and around the world.

Recovering Solidarity is widely interdisciplinary, utilizing Catholic social tradition, philosophical ethics, developmental economics, poverty research, gender studies, and sociology. It will appeal to those interested in the problems of poverty and justice.