Almost three years ago, I started reading Adam Leszczyński's People's History of Poland and I felt that some fundamental change was underway in the writing and thinking of Polish history. As I looked around at the books being published over the next few years, this turned out to be a wider trend. But this wasn't exclusive to academic debates, everyday readers were getting involved in the conversation. Clearly there was a need to address this change from a wider perspective, so I set out to write a review of a few of the most popular works in this "people's history" vein.
After a long, slow process of reading and thinking I managed to find a home for this piece in a Polish journal, Acta Polinae Historica and it is available to everyone here.
It's fascinating to think what the consequences of this change in perspective will mean for the future of other 'national' histories on a broader scale. Perhaps this is a first step toward founding a stable European identity that transcends the traditional categories.
Feel free to tell me what you think.