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Title: Poland by James A. Michener ISBN: 0-449-20587-8 Publisher: Fawcett Books Pub. Date: 12 September, 1984 Format: Mass Market Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $7.99 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.52 (33 reviews)
Rating: 3
Summary: Great read...but stunningly historically inaccurate.
Comment: I loved reading the book. But when I got to the section around 1920, I was shocked! Michener (probably based on being brainwashed by his Polish nationalist informants and simply not checking his facts) has Russia invading Poland!
Virtually all historians agree it was the other way around. To quote Isaac Babel:
Newly constituted as an independent nation after World War I, Poland sought to take advantage of the nascent Soviet state's upheaval to expand eastward, restoring its 1772 borders and its former stature...Jozef Pilsudski, leading the Poles, articulated the Polish mission both as a fulfillment of his country's historical destiny and as a crusade to save European civilization from the alien disease of Bolshevism....
Hostilities had begun in February 1919, in the wake of German withdrawal (after the November 1918 armistice) from the Russian-Polish borderlands...The Poles quickly acquired the upper hand. In April they took Vilna; in August, Minsk.... Polish troops kept moving, taking the Latvian city of Dvinsk in January 1920.
But many accounts date the beginning of the war to April of that year, when Poland moved deep into the Ukraine. On 6 May the Polish Army (aided by Ukrainian nationalist troops) took Kiev from the Reds."
In fact, in the treaty of Riga signed in 1921, Poland literally doubled its size, having unilaterally seized territory, some 80,000 square kilometers, from the Soviet Union.
Now that I see how wildly inaccurate Michener's storytelling is in this instance, I wonder about all the rest.
Be careful -- fun reading, but perhaps very poor history.
Rating: 5
Summary: Must Read
Comment: Excellent book. Couldn't put it down once I started reading it. For those interested in European history, I highly recommend this.
Rating: 5
Summary: Can't Put Down
Comment: Read this while touring through southern Poland in 2003. Lent a tremendous a poignant insight to this highly understood country in the turbulent heart of Europe's history. Highly recommend tying this to a visit to Krakow's historical museum (Czartowski - spelling?) as well as the Jewish quarter and Auschwitz.
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Title: The Polish Way: A Thousand-Year History of the Poles and Their Culture by Adam Zamoyski ISBN: 0781802008 Publisher: Hippocrene Books Pub. Date: December, 1993 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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Title: Covenant by James A. Michener ISBN: 0449214206 Publisher: Fawcett Books Pub. Date: 12 March, 1987 List Price(USD): $7.99 |
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Title: The Source by James A. Michener ISBN: 0449211479 Publisher: Fawcett Books Pub. Date: 12 March, 1986 List Price(USD): $7.99 |
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Title: Alaska by James A. Michener ISBN: 0449217264 Publisher: Fawcett Books Pub. Date: 29 May, 1989 List Price(USD): $7.99 |
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Title: Lonely Planet Poland (Poland, 4th Ed) by Krzysztof Dydynski ISBN: 1740590821 Publisher: Lonely Planet Pub. Date: May, 2002 List Price(USD): $19.99 |
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