Poland by James A. Michener Summary and Reviews
|
List Price: Our Price: $4.42 You Save: $3.57 (45%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $0.01 (click here) Category: Book See more book details and other editions |
|---|
Book Reviews of Poland
Book Review: Fantastic - Timely - Surprising
Summary: 4 Stars
All of Michener's books are awesome, but this is one of his more obscure titles. If you want to know what happened in that part of the world in early European history, leading up to the present time, this book spells it all out in a factual, interesting reading style that will keep you interested in the book until you finish it. Most of our history is "sugar coated" in one way or another, but this book tells it all, and will inform you about things you would not have dreamed possible as European history usually covers England, Rome, France, and Germany...Poles have contributed much to the new world, and have not received enough credit for a progressive, intelligent, and vibrant society.
Poles have suffered immensely from outside despots mostly because it never developed much of a military force to protect its people. Its political system lacked cogency for many decades leading to its weakness in the face of its enemies. It is splintered socially, economically, politically, culturally, and religiously at this time, but with a succession of stronger leaders, it could amalgamate into one of the great countries of Europe.
If you are interested in furthering your knowledge of history, this book will fascinate you from beginning to the end...read it and be wise!
Book Review: Fiction and fantasies
Summary: 2 Stars
(Re-submitted)J. A. Michener's book : Poland , paperback page 65 reads as follows: ...Teutonic Knights who crept out of Germany to occupy the Baltic seacoast- which should normally have been part of Poland - acted under the Pope...
Fact: Tacitus in 98 AD states in the Germania- that the Suebi - Goths - Aesti (Prussi) live at the Mare Suebicum in Germania.
Fact: Before the birth of Christ and Ptolemy ca 150 AD described Magna Germania and the Goths at the Vistula river with the West Baltic Galinder and Sudauer Borussia-Prussi to the east(Aesti).
Fact: 550 AD Jordanis describes the Aesti-Prussi as part of the Gothic empire under Theodoric the Great.
First record of the Polanen coming to this area was made mid 900's ,when Miezko I and son Boleslaw I Chrobry received land on loan from the German kings/emperors Otto I,II,III . For this they pledged allegiance to the emperors. The Polanen then went conquering to the north, east, west and south. 1920 and 1945-49 the communists and allies from the Soviet Union and Poland illegally removed the oiginal Prussia-German population.
Michener echoes this false 'original Polish land' fantasy.
Book Review: Get a Big Brain
Summary: 5 Stars
I finished Poland on the heels of Mila 18 by Uris and it gave me the back drop of the country and a more thorough view of Poland as a whole. I had no idea of the history of Poland and of the rich history that was nearly stolen from her on more than one occasion. I highly recommend this book for it's entertainment factor and historical richness.Book Review: Good but could have been more.
Summary: 4 Stars
For me the book got off to a slow start - invasion from the east then rebuild, invasion from the west then rebuild, etc. Nevertheless Michener covers these events well and held my interest. For me the book became more interesting with the chapter entitled The Golden Freedom. There the action shifted from the battlefield to politics. I did appreciate reading about the high nobility, the magnates. They believed themselves to be Poland. They had more in common with the aristocracies from other countries than they did with other Poles. Little is written about the rise of Polish nationalism. One chapter leaves off at the end of the 18th century with the magnates seemingly indifferent abut the division of Poland among Germany, Russia and Austria as long as they maintain their positions and vast land holdings. The next chapter picks up at the end of the 19th century with the fictional Count Lubonski concerned more about efficient functioning of the Austrian government. I would have liked to read more in the narrative about the development of Polish nationalism across class lines. Also, I would have liked to have read a chapter abut the Reformation and Counter-Reformation in Poland. Also as Poland is on the frontier of Western Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy I would have liked to have read more about that interaction particularly as "Eastern Catholicism" came out of that interaction with the Union of Brest in 1596.Book Review: Great read...but stunningly historically inaccurate.
Summary: 3 Stars
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.