The thirteen authors of this collective work undertook to articulate matter-of-fact critiques of the dominant narrative about communism in Poland while offering new analyses of the concept, and also examining the manifestations of anticommunism. Approaching communist ideas and practices, programs and their implementations, as an inseparable whole, they examine the issues of emancipation, upward social mobility, and changes in the cultural canon.

The authors refuse to treat communism in Poland in simplistic categories of totalitarianism, absolute evil and Soviet colonization, and similarly refuse to equate communism and fascism. Nor do they adopt the neoliberal view of communism as a project doomed to failure. While wholly exempt from nostalgia, these essays show that beyond oppression and bad governance, communism was also a regime in which people pursued a variety of goals and sincerely attempted to build a better world for themselves.

The book is interdisciplinary and applies the tools of social history, intellectual history, political philosophy, anthropology, literature, cultural studies, and gender studies to provide a nuanced view of the communist regimes in east-central Europe.

A powerful remembrance of the lessons and legacy of Jan Karski, who risked his life to share the truth with the world—and a cautionary tale for our times.

Richly illustrated with stills from the black-and-white film adaptation of the acclaimed stage play, Remember This: The Lesson of Jan Karski tells the story of World War II hero, Holocaust witness, and Georgetown University professor Jan Karski. A messenger of truth, Karski risked his life to carry his harrowing reports of the Holocaust from war-torn Poland to the Allied nations and, ultimately, the Oval Office, only to be ignored and disbelieved. Despite the West's unwillingness to act, Karski continued to tell others about the atrocities he saw, and, after a period of silence, would do so for the remainder of his life. This play carries forward his legacy of bearing witness so that future generations might be inspired to follow his example and "shake the conscience of the world."

Accompanying the text of the stage play in this volume are essays and conversations from leading diplomats, thinkers, artists, and writers who reckon with Karski's legacy, including Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, Ambassador Stuart Eizenstat, award-winning author Aminatta Forna, best-selling author Azar Nafisi, President Emeritus of Georgetown Leo J. O'Donovan, SJ, Ambassador Samantha Power, Ambassador Cynthia P. Schneider, historian Timothy Snyder, Academy Award nominated actor David Strathairn, and best-selling author Deborah Tannen.

Antisemitism emerged toward the end of the nineteenth century as a powerful political movement with broad popular appeal. It promoted a vision of the world in which a closely-knit tribe called “the Jews” conspired to dominate the globe through control of international finance at the highest levels of commerce and money lending in the towns and villages. This tribe at the same time maneuvered to destroy the very capitalist system it was said to control through its devotion to the cause of revolution. It is easy to draw a straight line from this turn-of-the-century paranoid thinking to the murderous delusions of twentieth-century fascism. Yet the line was not straight.

Antisemitism as a political weapon did not stand unchallenged, even in Eastern Europe, where its consequences were particularly dire. In this region, Jewish leaders mobilized across national borders and in alliance with non-Jewish public figures on behalf of Jewish rights and in opposition to anti-Jewish violence. Antisemites were called to account and forced on the defensive. In Imperial and then Soviet Russia, in newly emerging Poland, and in aspiring Ukraine—notorious in the West as antisemitic hotbeds—antisemitism was sometimes a moral and political liability. These intriguing essays explore the reasons why, and they offer lessons from surprising places on how we can continue to fight antisemitism in our times.

This book is about migration as a form of risk-taking. Based on Ukrainian women’s experiences in the Polish domestic work sector, it presents a new approach to analyse movements of female migrants responding to the demand for household labour around the world. Risks involved in migration and in migrant domestic work are accounted for in detail alongside an analysis of the migration decision-making processes. This study shows how social ties and migrant institutions effectively reduce the otherwise radical asymmetry of power between an individual migrant, the state and an employer. A Risky Business? brings to light the complex risk structures of migrants’ activities and their sophisticated responses to them. With their innovative strategies, migrants challenge government-imposed constraints and thus reduce the risks of migration.

This is an analysis of 166 original and previously unpublished documents dating from the very first mention of a Gypsy in 1401 up to the year 1 765. These documents range from royal decrees thru lawsuits to entries in municipal records. Some were written in Polish but many are in Latin, German or Ruthenian. They tell the story of not only the Gypsies living in Poland, but also of those who now live in Belarus, Lithuania, Latvia and Ukraine. Though Poland has not traditionally had a large Roma population, the author leads the reader through an eventful history of a people living on the margins of contemporary Europe. The historic documents illustrate a marked contrast to present stereotypes and popular media images and shows how the position of Roma/Gypsies shifted gradually from respected, wealthy and partly settled citizens of the early modern times, towards criminalized vagrants of the 18 th century.This is a careful interpretation and re-interpretation of documents pertaining to the Roma's past that will provide an enlightening historical perspective towards the re-evaluation and self-definition of the Romani people in contemporary Europe.