The Ukrainian Cossacks were a complex and tenacious group, influential far beyond their numbers. This book offers an admiring, critical, and close examination of the unique cossack phenomenon. It reveals the sources of their surprising power by looking at them in action, in their sixteenth-century uprisings. The interpretation is organized around three themes, offering resolutions of three apparent contradictions in cossack activity: first, how the cossacks could act simultaneously as individualist mercenaries and yet also lead a collective, class-conscious social rebellion; second, how they could be simultaneously traditionalist and yet also provide leadership for the developing modern Ukrainian nationalism; and third, how the cossacks could be simultaneously unique, quintessentially Ukrainian, and yet form a part of a worldwide response to economic transformations that drew Eastern Europe into a position as exploited agricultural provider for Western Europe.

A study of antisemitism in Poland in the 20th century. Describes the increase in antisemitism between 1918-39. Reflects on the question of the role of Polish antisemitism in the Holocaust. During the war, most Poles either collaborated with the Nazis or at least approved of the economic measures against the Jews. The rightist anti-German resistance (e.g. Narodowe Sily Zbrojne) regarded Jews as enemies of Poland and sometimes cooperated with the Nazis in the murders. The Armia Krajowa was also antisemitic, and sometimes killed Jews. Many Poles profited from the Holocaust. The Catholic Church was silent. Discusses, also, the Poles who rescued Jews and their motivations. At the end of the war there was a wave of murders of Jews who had survived the Holocaust or were repatriated from the USSR. Antisemitism remained a political factor in Poland both in the communist and post-communist periods.

In this wide-ranging exploration of the economic roots of antisemitism, Hillel Levine trace the position of Jews from the end of the sixteenth century to the demise of the Polish state in 1795. Levine explains why Poland was not able to to modernize its backward social, economic, and political system at a time when Western European countries were rapidly evolving, and he shows that Jews were blames for this failure to modernize, furling an economic antisemitism that contributed to the Holocaust and is with us still.

Text: English, German (translation)

Warsaw. The Jewish Metropolis offers analyses of the cultural, religious, political and intellectual history of Warsaw Jewry, once the leading Jewish metropolis in Europe and the world.