It is heartening to see the West taking notice of a part of the world that, as Zamoyski illustrates, it can learn a great deal from today. However, I must disagree with his concluding remarks about the reasons for Polish resilience throughout her history: By claiming that it was the “European Christian humanist civilization, with its fruits of democracy, civil liberty and all the rest” Zamoyski seems to impute a post-modern universalist attitude that simply did not (and could not) exist among the agents of Polish nationalist resistance and struggle, whether it was during the years of Partition under the Central European empires, or Nazi and later Soviet occupation. Many of the factions that provided the institutional framework for resistance were hardly democratic or concerned with civil liberty the way we would understand it today (e.g. the “Endeks”). Of course it is true that the average Pole loved his freedom, and in this respect, he shared much in common with the American Revolutionaries of the 18th century; however, the love of the liberal institutions that moderns associate with liberty were always set in the context of Polish national survival, and accordingly, indigenous nationalist sentiment. This sentiment translated in times of oppression as an indomitable stubbornness on part of a defeated but unforgiving populace. Therefore, it is somewhat misleading to hold that “what preserved the Poles in the face of immeasurably superior odds and unspeakably ghastly ordeals were those very values” of “humanist civilization ... and all the rest”. What follows is the grave error in presuming that these values are indeed a “very powerful weapon”. On the contrary: the term “Finlandisation” has recently become synonymous with the status of a country seemingly sovereign, but almost completely dominated by a neighbour and forced into the delusion of “soft power” as an effective vehicle for international engagement. Contrary to Zamoyski’s thesis, the Poles themselves have not fallen for this delusion: this is one of the many reasons why they too remain partly married to the old model by their involvement of the (now cancelled) Missile Shield. The history of Central Europe is highly complex. Zamoyski does a great service to both Poland and the West by addressing it and presenting it to a Western audience. But he must resist the common mistake of contemporary historians to take a reductionist view of cause and effect. Many have made this error and it would be a pity if Zamoyski were to follow them.

Zamoyski's history of Poland is a fantastic achievement. As a student of Central and Eastern European Studies I highly recommend this book to anyone wanting to understand the region. The facts are clear and the opinions balanced. The Rzeczpospolita has many lessons for our modern democracy.