A Concise History of Poland (Cambridge Concise Histories)

This book was recommended by someone who lived through some challenging times in the history of Poland. I’ve just started to read it but it appears to be very comprehensive and engaging.

I am a trained historian but no expert in Polish history. I found this book bewildering to the point of being annoyed by its presentation: too few chapters to help with the absorption of the history, too detailed with few overall outlines of the course of Polish history; no clear definitions of key concepts such as the Sejm; the maps are terribly confusing and cheaply done. Someone with good knowledge of the subject matter will find the book helpful as the narrative is nuanced, if unstructured. The authors are certainly highly qualified as historians, alas not as writers of history. A sadly disappointing book.

One of those books written as though the reader is already an expert on Polish history. What results is a bewildering array of rulers, territories and wars, lovingly seasoned with odd, unexplained bits of Polish and Latin thrown in. Really rather disappointing.