Kochanski clarifies the far from simple process by which Poland, from being the first to fight and Britain's only real ally in 1940, became a nuisance to its allies, and the pledges of independence and territorial integrity turned into a washing of hands. Outmanoeuvred and bullied by Stalin, the  Western leaders Churchill, Roosevelt and Truman understandably sought to marginalise the stumbling-block of Poland, and managed to kick the issue into the long grass. But its centrality was underlined by the empty chair at the San Francisco conference that launched the United Nations: of the 45 founding nations, only the Poles were not being permitted to elect their own government. 

This book is history at its best. It tells the whole story, and tells it well, with just the right mixture of detachment and empathy, in crisp, readable prose. But it also speaks to the imagination and makes the reader think — and not just about the subject in hand. The story that unfolds on these pages is not just that of Poland and the Poles: it is also in some ways a parable, about the human condition, about how dangerous it is to bracket or condemn, about the inadvisability of making grandiloquent statements of principle such as the Atlantic Charter and trumpeting moral causes when one is going to have to betray them in a grubby trade-off imposed by harsh reality, and about where ignorance, delusion and intellectual dishonesty can lead. Politicians today should read it attentively.