Adam Michnik's Books

The Church and the Left

By: Adam Michnik

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Helps explain the powerful coalition between the Catholic Church and the dissident Left in the Polish revolutionary movement, and describes the unique makeup and direction of the Polish social revolution. Annotation copyright Book News, Inc. Portland, Or.

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Page Count

332

Publisher

University of Chicago Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0226524248

ISBN 13

9780226524245

Letters from Freedom

Post–Cold War Realities and Perspectives

By: Adam Michnik

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Letters from Freedom

Post–Cold War Realities and Perspectives

By: Adam Michnik

A hero to many, Polish writer Adam Michnik ranks among today's most fearless and persuasive public figures. His imprisonment by Poland's military regime in the 1980s did nothing to quench his outpouring of writings, many of which were published in English as Letters from Prison. Beginning where that volume ended, Letters from Freedom finds Michnik briefly in prison at the height of the "cold civil war" between authorities and citizens in Poland, then released. Through his continuing essays, articles, and interviews, the reader can follow all the momentous changes of the last decade in Poland and East-Central Europe. Some of the writings have appeared in English in various publications; most are translated here for the first time. Michnik is never detached. His belief that people can get what they want without hatred and violence has always translated into action, and his actions, particularly the activity of writing, have required his contemporaries to think seriously about what it is they want. His commitment to freedom is absolute, but neither wild-eyed nor humorless; with a characteristic combination of idealism and pragmatism, Michnik says, "In the end, politics is the art of foreseeing and implementing the possible." Michnik's blend of conviction and political acumen is perhaps most vividly revealed in the interviews transcribed in the book, whether he is the subject of the interview or is conducting a conversation with Czeslaw Milosz, Vacláv Havel, or Wojciech Jaruzelski. These face-to-face exchanges tell more about the forces at work in contemporary Eastern Europe than could any textbook. Sharing Michnik's intellectual journey through a tumultuous era, we touch on all the subjects important to him in this wide-ranging collection and find they have importance for everyone who values conscience and responsibility. In the words of Jonathan Schell, "Michnik is one of those who bring honor to the last two decades of the twentieth century.

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Page Count

388

Publisher

Univ of California Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0520922492

ISBN 13

9780520922495

An Uncanny Era

Conversations Between Václav Havel and Adam Michnik

By: Václav Havel,Adam Michnik

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An Uncanny Era

Conversations Between Václav Havel and Adam Michnik

By: Václav Havel,Adam Michnik

Collects the conversations between the former president of the Czech Republic and the editor in chief of the largest daily newspaper in Poland, beginning in the 1970s and continuing as they lived through a tumultuous era in Central Europe.

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Page Count

264

Publisher

Yale University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0300204035

ISBN 13

9780300204032

Letters From Prison and Other Essays

By: Adam Michnik

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Letters From Prison and Other Essays

By: Adam Michnik

Among the voices that speak to us from Poland today, the most important may be that of Adam Michnik. Michnik now sits in a jail belonging to the totalitarian regime, yet his first concern--and herein lies one of the keys to his thinking, and one should add, to his character--is with the quality of his own conduct, which, together with teh conduct of other victims of the present situation, will, he is sure, one day set the tone for whatever political system follows the totalitarian debacle. His essays are the most valuable guide we have to the origins of the revolution, and, more particularly, to its innovative practices.

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Page Count

408

Publisher

Univ of California Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0520908589

ISBN 13

9780520908581

In Search of Lost Meaning

The New Eastern Europe

By: Adam Michnik

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In Search of Lost Meaning

The New Eastern Europe

By: Adam Michnik

In this new collection of essays, Adam Michnik—one of Europe’s leading dissidents—traces the post-cold-war transformation of Eastern Europe. He writes again in opposition, this time to post-communist elites and European Union bureaucrats. Composed of history, memoir, and political critique, In Search of Lost Meaning shines a spotlight on the changes in Poland and the Eastern Bloc in the post-1989 years. Michnik asks what mistakes were made and what we can learn from climactic events in Poland’s past, in its literature, and the histories of Central and Eastern Europe. He calls attention to pivotal moments in which central figures like Lech Walesa and political movements like Solidarity came into being, how these movements attempted to uproot the past, and how subsequent events have ultimately challenged Poland’s enduring ethical legacy of morality and liberalism. Reflecting on the most recent efforts to grapple with Poland’s Jewish history and residual guilt, this profoundly important book throws light not only on recent events, but also on the thinking of one of their most important protagonists.

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246

Publisher

Univ of California Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0520949471

ISBN 13

9780520949478

The Trouble with History

Morality, Revolution, and Counterrevolution

By: Adam Michnik

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The Trouble with History

Morality, Revolution, and Counterrevolution

By: Adam Michnik

Renowned Eastern European author Adam Michnik was jailed for more than six years by the communist regime in Poland for his dissident activities. He was an outspoken voice for democracy in the world divided by the Iron Curtain and has remained so to the present day. In this thoughtful and provocative work, the man the Financial Times named “one of the 20 most influential journalists in the world” strips fundamentalism of its religious component and examines it purely as a secular political phenomenon. Comparing modern-day Poland with postrevolutionary France, Michnik offers a stinging critique of the ideological “virus of fundamentalism” often shared by emerging democracies: the belief that, by using techniques of intimidating public opinion, a state governed by “sinless individuals” armed with a doctrine of the only correct means of organizing human relations can build a world without sin. Michnik employs deep historical analysis and keen political observation in his insightful five-point philosophical meditation on morality in public life, ingeniously expounding on history, religion, moral thought, and the present political climate in his native country and throughout Europe.

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Page Count

208

Publisher

Yale University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0300185979

ISBN 13

9780300185973

The Church and the Left

By: Adam Michnik

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The Church and the Left

By: Adam Michnik

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Page Count

332

Publisher

University of Chicago Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0226524248

ISBN 13

9780226524245

Liberalism's Crooked Circle

Letters to Adam Michnik

By: Ira Katznelson,Adam Michnik

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Liberalism's Crooked Circle

Letters to Adam Michnik

By: Ira Katznelson,Adam Michnik

This book is a profoundly moving and analytically incisive attempt to shift the terms of discussion in American politics. It speaks to the intellectual and political weaknesses within the liberal tradition that have put the United States at the mercy of libertarian, authoritarian populist, nakedly racist, and traditionalist elitist versions of the right-wing; and it seeks to identify resources that can move the left away from the stunned intellectual incoherence with which it has met the death of Bolshevism. In Ira Katznelson's view, Americans are squandering a tremendous ethical and political opportunity to redefine and reorient the liberal tradition. In an opening essay and two remarkable letters addressed to Adam Michnik, who is arguably East Europe's emblematic democratic intellectual, Katznelson seeks to recover this possibility. By examining issues that once occupied Michnik's fellow dissidents in the Warsaw group known as the Crooked Circle, Katznelson brings a fresh realism to old ideals and posits a liberalism that "stares hard" at cruelty, suffering, coercion, and tyrannical abuses of state power. Like the members of Michnik's club, he recognizes that the circumference of liberalism's circle never runs smooth and that tolerance requires extremely difficult judgments. Katznelson's first letter explores how the virtues of socialism, including its moral stand on social justice, can be related to liberalism while overcoming debilitating aspects of the socialist inheritance. The second asks whether liberalism can recognize, appreciate, and manage human difference. Situated in the lineage of efforts by Richard Hofstadter, C. Wright Mills, and Lionel Trilling to "thicken" liberalism, these letters also draw on personal experience in the radical politics of the 1960s and in the dissident culture of East and Central Europe in the years immediately preceding communism's demise. Liberalism's Crooked Circle could help foster a substantive debate in the American elections of 1996 and determine the contents of that desperately needed discussion.

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Page Count

192

Published Date

ISBN 10

0691034389

ISBN 13

9780691034386

An Uncanny Era

Conversations Between Václav Havel and Adam Michnik

By: Václav Havel,Adam Michnik

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An Uncanny Era

Conversations Between Václav Havel and Adam Michnik

By: Václav Havel,Adam Michnik

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Page Count

264

Publisher

Yale University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0300204035

ISBN 13

9780300204032

Without End

New and Selected Poems

By: Adam Zagajewski

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Without End

New and Selected Poems

By: Adam Zagajewski

I love to swim in the sea, which keeps talking to itself in the monotone of a vagabond who no longer recalls exactly how long he's been on the road. Swimming is like prayer: palms join and part, join and part, almost without end. --from "On Swimming" Without End draws from each of Adam Zagajewski's English-language collections, both in and out of print--Tremor, Canvas, and Mysticism for Beginners--and features new work that is among his most refreshing and rewarding. These poems, lucidly translated, share the vocation that allows us, in Zagajewski's words, "to experience astonishment and to stop still in that astonishment for a long moment or two.

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Page Count

308

Publisher

Macmillan

Published Date

ISBN 10

0374528616

ISBN 13

9780374528614

Another Beauty

By: Adam Zagajewski

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Another Beauty

By: Adam Zagajewski

This brilliant memoir is Adam Zagajewski's recollection of 1960s and 1970s communist Poland, where he was a fledgling writer, student of philosophy, and vocal dissident at the university in Krakow, Poland's most beautiful and ancient city.

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Page Count

240

Publisher

University of Georgia Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0820324108

ISBN 13

9780820324104

Democracy and the Market

Political and Economic Reforms in Eastern Europe and Latin America

By: Adam Przeworski

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Democracy and the Market

Political and Economic Reforms in Eastern Europe and Latin America

By: Adam Przeworski

The quest for freedom from hunger and repression has triggered in recent years a dramatic, worldwide reform of political and economic systems. Never have so many people enjoyed, or at least experimented with democratic institutions. However, many strategies for economic development in Eastern Europe and Latin America have failed with the result that entire economic systems on both continents are being transformed. This major book analyzes recent transitions to democracy and market-oriented economic reforms in Eastern Europe and Latin America. Drawing in a quite distinctive way on models derived from political philosophy, economics, and game theory, Professor Przeworski also considers specific data on individual countries. Among the questions raised by the book are: What should we expect from these experiments in democracy and market economy? What new economic systems will emerge? Will these transitions result in new democracies or old dictatorships?

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Page Count

230

Publisher

Cambridge University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

052142335X

ISBN 13

9780521423359

From Failed Communism to Underdeveloped Capitalism

Transformation of Eastern Europe, the Post-Soviet Union and China

By: Adam Zwass

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From Failed Communism to Underdeveloped Capitalism

Transformation of Eastern Europe, the Post-Soviet Union and China

By: Adam Zwass

This text presents an analysis of the sources and general features of the current political and economic situation in the reforming countries of Central and Eastern Europe, the former Soviet Union and China.

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Page Count

259

Publisher

Routledge

Published Date

ISBN 10

1315482835

ISBN 13

9781315482835

The Elsewhere

On Belonging at a Near Distance

By: Adam Zachary Newton

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The Elsewhere

On Belonging at a Near Distance

By: Adam Zachary Newton

The Elsewhere." Or, midbar-biblical Hebrew for both "wilderness" and "speech." A place of possession and dispossession, loss and nostalgia. But also a place that speaks. Ingeniously using a Talmudic interpretive formula about the disposition of boundaries, Newton explores narratives of "place, flight, border, and beyond." The writers of The Elsewhere are a disparate company of twentieth-century memoirists and fabulists from the Levant (Palestine/Israel, Egypt) and East Central Europe. Together, their texts-cunningly paired so as to speak to one another in mutually revelatory ways-narrate the paradox of the "near distance.

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Page Count

413

Publisher

Univ of Wisconsin Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0299208931

ISBN 13

9780299208936

A Defense of Ardor

Essays

By: Adam Zagajewski

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A Defense of Ardor

Essays

By: Adam Zagajewski

Ardor, inspiration, the soul, the sublime: Such terms have long since fallen from favor among critics and artists alike. In his new collection of essays, Adam Zagajewski continues his efforts to reclaim for art not just the terms but the scanted spiritual dimension of modern human existence that they stake out. Bringing gravity and grace to his meditations on art, society, and history, Zagajewski wears his erudition lightly, with a disarming blend of modesty and humor. His topics range from autobiography (his first visit to a post-Soviet Lvov after childhood exile; his illicit readings of Nietzsche in Communist Poland); to considerations of artist friends past and present (Zbigniew Herbert, Czeslaw Milosz); to intellectual and psychological portraits of cities he has known, east and west; to a dazzling thumbnail sketch of postwar Polish poetry. Zagajewski gives an account of the place of art in the modern age that distinguishes his self-proclaimed liberal vision from the "right-wing radicalism" of such modernist precursors as Eliot or Yeats. The same mixture of ardor and compassion that marks Zagajewski's distinctive contribution to modern poetry runs throughout this eloquent, engaging collection.

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Page Count

189

Publisher

Macmillan + ORM

Published Date

ISBN 10

1466884231

ISBN 13

9781466884236

In Search of Lost Meaning

The New Eastern Europe

By: Adam Michnik

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In Search of Lost Meaning

The New Eastern Europe

By: Adam Michnik

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Page Count

248

Publisher

University of California Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0520269233

ISBN 13

9780520269231

Letters from Freedom

Post–Cold War Realities and Perspectives

By: Adam Michnik

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Letters from Freedom

Post–Cold War Realities and Perspectives

By: Adam Michnik

Adam Michnik's imprisonment by Poland's military regime in the 1980s did nothing to stop his outpouring of writings. This volume of his letters finds Michnik briefly in prison, then released. Through his writing the reader can follow the changes of the last decade in Poland

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Page Count

383

Publisher

Univ of California Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0520217608

ISBN 13

9780520217607

The Trouble with History

Morality, Revolution, and Counterrevolution

By: Adam Michnik

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The Trouble with History

Morality, Revolution, and Counterrevolution

By: Adam Michnik

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Page Count

208

Publisher

Yale University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0300207026

ISBN 13

9780300207026

Liberalism's Crooked Circle

Letters to Adam Michnik

By: Ira Katznelson

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Liberalism's Crooked Circle

Letters to Adam Michnik

By: Ira Katznelson

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Page Count

212

Published Date

ISBN 10

1400804337

ISBN 13

9781400804337

Letters from Freedom

Post-cold War Realities and Perspectives

By: Adam Michnik

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Letters from Freedom

Post-cold War Realities and Perspectives

By: Adam Michnik

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Page Count

348

Publisher

California Academy of Sciences

Published Date

ISBN 10

0520217594

ISBN 13

9780520217591

The Art of Peacemaking

Political Essays by István Bibó

By: István Bibó,Adam Michnik

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The Art of Peacemaking

Political Essays by István Bibó

By: István Bibó,Adam Michnik

Istvâan Bibâo (1911-1979) was a Hungarian lawyer, political thinker, prolific essayist, and minister of state for the Hungarian national government during the Hungarian Revolution of 1956. This magisterial compendium of Bibâo's essays introduces English-speaking audiences to the writings of one of the foremost theorists and psychologists of twentieth-century European politics and culture. Elegantly translated by Pâeter Pâasztor and with a scholarly introduction by Ivâan Zoltâan Dâenes, the essays in this volume address the causes and fallout of European political crises, postwar changes in the balance of power among countries, and nation-building processes"--

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Page Count

486

Publisher

Yale University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0300203780

ISBN 13

9780300203783

Liberties Journal of Culture and Politics

By: Leon Wieseltier

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Liberties Journal of Culture and Politics

By: Leon Wieseltier

A Meteor of Intelligent Substance" "Something was Missing in our Culture, and Here It Is" "Liberties is THE place to be." Liberties, a journal of Culture and Politics, is essential reading for those engaged in the cultural and political issues and causes of our time. Liberties features serious, independent, stylish, and controversial essays by significant writers and leaders throughout the world; new poetry; and, introduces the next generation of writers and voices to inspire and impact the intellectual and creative lifeblood of today's culture and politics.

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