'To be both weak and daring is for a nation an impossibility,' he concludes in what, alas, could be a Polish epitaph. Had her neighbors been England, France and America instead of Russia, Prussia and Austria, she would surely have been permitted to exist for the innovations she was proposing were merely extensions of what the first trio had already accepted.' The internal contradictions that render Poland weak today are those which have always done so-mainly the clash between democratic and autocratic impulses.įor instance, 18th-century Poland, writes Michener, 'had evolved no way to defend herself with a stable government, regular taxation and a dependable army and in her weakness she had endeavored to initiate freedoms which threatened the autocracies which surrounded her. The external powers that control Poland's destiny, Russia and Germany in particular, have been doing so for centuries. The main message conveyed again and again (and again) is that Poland's problems are irreversibly built into its make-up.

The most successful feature of this typically ambitious panorama is how deftly it weaves the strands from Poland's difficult 20th century-the nation's re-creation after World War I, the Nazi torment that soon followed, the Soviet-led repression and the church's continuing challenge-with patterns of more distant years. Events over a millenium have provided Michener all the grist he needs for making his convincing case that Poland's unhappy present is directly related to its turbulent past.

But in 'Poland,' Michener's account of a thousand years of Polish history, that is probably just as well. Subtlety in plot and complexity of character have never been among James Michener's attributes.

Poland book james michener