BiblioVault - Books by Wandycz, Piotr S.

Piotr S. Wandycz

University of Minnesota Press

France and her Eastern Allies, 1919–1925 was first published in 1962. Minnesota Archive Editions uses digital technology to make long-unavailable books once again accessible, and are published unaltered from the original University of Minnesota Press editions.

Relations between France, Czechoslovakia, and Poland occupied an important position in European diplomacy in the years between World War I and World War II. Beginning with the breakdown of the old political, social, and economic order on the Continent during the first World War, these relations went through many changes. This book deals with the crucial period from the Paris Peace Conference of 1919 to the signing of the Locarno Pact in 1925. During this time France attempted to establish an eastern barrier of buffer states with Poland and Czechoslovakia at the core, with the aim of keeping Germany and Bolshevik Russia apart. This, France hoped, would guarantee European peace and security. Although an effective eastern barrier was never realized, the attempt to create one was a worthy and important undertaking.

Professor Wandycz considers in detail the various aspects of the complex relationship between France and the two western Slav states — geographic, economic, social, and political. In addition, he provides a clear and interesting picture of some of the personalities involved. Through the use of hitherto unpublished source material, he throws new light on many events of general European diplomatic history as well as on Polish, French, and Czechoslovak foreign policy in particular.

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Soviet–Polish Relations, 1917–1921

Piotr S. Wandycz

Harvard University Press, 1969

The United States and Poland

Piotr S. Wandycz

Harvard University Press, 1980

The United States and Poland adds a new dimension to the scholarship of America's international relations. Piotr Wandycz presents a comprehensive picture of the changing relationships between the United States and Poland over two hundred years.

This work is, as Wandycz writes, both a survey and a synthesis. Because he believes that an understanding of the history of Poland is necessary in order to appreciate the complex nature of its involvement with the United States, he provides a thorough analysis of Poland's internal development, concentrating on the twentieth century. He also carefully places American-Polish history in the broader context of changing East-West relations. Finally, he speculates on the future between the two countries as detente unfolds and surprising happenings like the election of a Polish Pope occur.

Ultimately, Wandycz acknowledges, the American-Polish relationship has been one-sided, even more so than is normal in contacts between great and small powers. “One must not imagine,” he writes, “that Poland has been on the minds of American foreign policy makers consistently...but if one thinks of Poland in the context of East Central Europe, her significance increases dramatically.” This book provides a necessary history and evaluation of a nation state once dominant in Europe and now searching for an appropriate role.

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