A SUBURB OF EUROPE: XIXth-CENTURY POLISH APPROACHES TO WESTERN CIVILISATION

"In this superbly written book, Jerzy Jedlicki presents the reader with acontribution to the increasingly rich literature devoted to the"intelligentsia". A Suburb of Europe, however, does not so much deal withthe now all-too-familiar issues of social origin and political influence asit does with intellectual history. The author chooses as his theme themanner in which Polish intellectuals of all political stripes reacted tothe twin issues of west-European style liberal progress and industrialcivilization. In their attempts at understanding the changes being broughtabout across all of Europe by the rapidly advancing western economicsystems of the post-Enlightenment period, and at finding a place for Polandin this emerging new world, these intellectuals often developed a critiqueof the west and constructed variegated images of a future world. Jedlickiattempts to put these thinkers and their ideas into the proper historicalcontext and to map out for the reader an axiological grid, locating eachthinker according to the manner of his critique of the west and attitudetoward what we must call "modernization". This book is the English languageversion of a longer Polish edition first published in 1988. Jedlicki'spreface is a model of what a preface ought to be: a clear, conciseintroduction to the subject and outline of the structure of the book. Theprose is to the point and is as eminently understandable for the educatedreader not conversant with Polish history as it is illuminating to thespecialist...As a contribution to Polish intellectual and social history,this work may well be the single best published in English in the pastdecade. It is thoughtful, erudite, andconvincing. The writing is lively andclear. All serious students of Poland, of modernization, and of the natureof capitalism and how it interacts with poor, peripheral, agriculturalsocieties must read this book." Peter Wozniak, H-NET Book Review"This is a brilliant example of intellectual history, but it is one whoseimportance far transcends the period on which it focuses. In importantways, in the post-communist 'transition' of the 1990s, the issues of the19th century are profoundly relevant to the beginnings of the 21st.Moreover, Jedlicki's book raises issues and examines positions that wereand are not unique to Poland, but that every society faces as it confrontssocial change." Choice"A Suburb of Europe is an excellent volume about philosophy, politicaleconomy, the creation of nationalism, and a host of other subjects. It isan enlightening and engrossing read. Anyone with an interest in Poland andEast Central Europe will find this an invaluable and enjoyable book."Daniel Pinkerton, Austrian Studies Newsletter