Backwardness and Modernization

Jacek Kochanowicz is professor of economic history at the University of Warsaw. This invaluable collection brings together fourteen essays and articles which have appeared in western European and American journals and collections between 1983 and 2001, pre-dating, that is, Poland's accession to the European Union in May 2004. This is a pity, since Kochanowicz's views on that particular development, would have rounded off a perceptive assemblage of meditations on the historical evolution of states, societies and economies. Although Poland is the main focus of these writings, the author constantly draws valuable comparisons with other Eastern European states and with the modernising countries of Asia and South America—although an essay written today would certainly have given more space to China than is generally accorded here. The first five essays are the most ‘historical’, dealing with Poland's economic and social developments between the sixteenth and mid-twentieth centuries, illuminating the economic motivations of

Accession · Ancient history · Art · Backwardness · China · Economic growth · Economic history · Economics · Economy · Erasmus · European union · Literature · Modernization theory · Pity · Political science · Politics · Soviet union · Historical Economic and Social Studies · History · Law