As a young (relatively) Russian, I was always perplexed by the encounters - infrequent as they were - of mutual animosity between my people and the Poles. We can understand significant amounts of each other's language (to a degree again), stem from one Slavonic family, share name pools and laying claims on inventions of v/wodka, borsch/t and kas/zha. Being and two different branches of Christianity for me is an empty sound, since I counted on some advances atheism worked on both peoples. I am a one. Anyway, I was told by both parties that "it's historical". Now I decided to see it myself.

This book...Well, the author is definitely proud of his ancestors (or namesakes?) Zamoyskys, new members of which he introduces to readers with nearly each passing century. Well, that's mildly amusing, but OK. What I definitely lacked were footnotes and references. Although in the Introduction he explains their absence as removal of unnecessary nuisance to wider audience, and claiming that there's no need for those, since all he says is a scientifically accepted and wildly acknowledged facts, I found several of his assertions if not outright questionable, then at least in need of those abrogated asterisks. Many questions he touches upon are still matters of scientific debates, let alone name calling at international football matches. To give you a taste: When counting languages used in courts of XVI century Lwow, he names quite a few, Armenian, Jewish (which of them), Ukrainian and BELORUSSIAN among others. I mean quite a lot of people wouldn't agree that Belorussian language (with all due respect) was a written language at the time (and some would deny it was fully formed at all back then). I mean I'm not protesting or denying Belorussian it's proper due, but I just want a serious corroboration for a thing served matter of factly. While it's not a trifle for a book of history.

All in all my ideal of a country's history remains The Pursuit of Italy, whose author didn't show the nation as populated mostly with valiant and noble forefathers and surrounded by mostly hapless or conniving neighbors.

P.S. My Spring trip to Poland was awesome.

A competent and interesting history. Zamoyski seems to be conservative but not populist. He is perhaps unrealistic about the ancient Commonwealth as a non-ethnic state held together by ideas. This might work in America where ethnicities did not flow over to the neighbours. The typography made it difficult to distinguish between the Polish letters L and Ł.

Poland don't get no respect. As if its history were not bleak enough, there are the "Polish jokes." Yet, one learns here that in the 16th century, Poland was one of the largest, most powerful, and most tolerant of European nations. Unfortunately, it has been downhill from there. Because of political decentralization and a tendency toward the regional, Poland remained stagnant as Prussia, Austro-Hungary, and Russia all became significantly stronger. By 1772, these three nations simply carved up Poland and the country disappeared for nearly 150 years. Yet, during all that time, Poles somehow kept the language, culture, religion, and sense of nationhood alive. The Treaty of Versailles that ended WWI reanimated the nation, and once again there was, briefly, a Poland on the map. However, In 1939 Hitler and Stalin erased it once more as WWII began. In 1945, the nation began its 50-year status as a Russian Eastern European satellite and the Poles suffered like all of those behind the Iron Curtain. Finally, in 1989, with the collapse of the Soviet Union, Poland finally was finally able to be an independent nation again. The author is best at describing the history of the nation prior to modernity. His description of the Nazi rape of the nation is vivid. But recent history is perfunctory at best; Zamoyski seems almost fearful to chart a future for this victim state. And he notes that the wounds of the Second World War and Communism were grievous, deep, and destructive. He almost infers that today's leadership keeps looking over its shoulder for the next nation to subjugate the country. Recent government initiatives and political leadership seem temporary and contradictory, as if the nation was search for its true identity--whatever that is. Someone else will have to tell the story of Poland from the rise of Solidarity to the current day. ( )