The Origins of Modern Polish Democracy

"This important book, to which many of the leading scholars of the subject have contributed, provides a clear and accessible account of the evolution of Polish democratic thought and of the aspirations of the Polish people for a democratic political system from the 1863 January Uprising to the present day. It fills a long-felt need in the scholarship on this topic."---Antony Polonsky, Albert Abramson Professor of Holocaust Studies, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and Brandeis University

"The presentation of Polish democratic traditions and aspirations in this valuable study helps us understand not only the past but also present. Following an insightful introduction, nine outstanding Polish, Canadian, and American historians concentrate on developments in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Their views, occasionally controversial, make for rewarding and stimulating reading. A most welcome addition to the field."---Piotr S. Wandyez, Bradford Durfee Professor of History Emeritus, Yale University

The Origins of Modern Polish Democracy is a series of closely integrated essays that traces the idea of democracy in Polish thought and practice. It begins with the transformative events of the mid-nineteenth century, which witnessed revolutionary developments in the socioeconomic and demographic structure of Poland, and continues through changes that marked the post-Communistera of free Poland.

The idea of democracy survived in Poland through long periods of foreign occupation, the trials of two world wars, and years of Communist subjugation. Whether in Poland itself or among exiles. Speculation about the creation of a liberal democratic Poland has been central to modern Polish political thought. This volume is unique in that it traces the evolution of the idea of democracy, both during the periods when Poland was an independent country (from 1918 to 1939 and again after the fall of Communism in 1989) and during the periods of foreign occupation (before 1918 and from the out break of World War II through the Communist era). For those periods when Poland was not free, the volume discusses how the idea of democracy evolved among exile and underground Polish circles.

This important work is the only single-volume English-language history of modern Polish democratic thought and parliamentary systems and represents the latest scholarly research by leading specialists from Europe and North America.

Piotr J. Wrobel holds the Knostanty Reynert Chair of Polish Studies at the University of Toronto. He has authored and coauthored many scholarly articles and nine books, including The Historical Dictionary of Poland, 1945-1996 and Nation and History: Polish Historians from the Enlightenment to the Second World War (coedited with Peter Brock and John D. Stanley).