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University of California Press

About the Book

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. 

About the Author

Adam Michnik is a historian, essayist, former dissident, public intellectual, and the editor-in-chief of Poland's largest newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza.

Table of Contents

Foreword by Czeslaw Milosz 
Introduction by Jonathan Schell 
Letters from Prison 
Why You Are Not Signing... 
Why You Are Not Emigrating... 
The Polish War 
On Resistance 
A Letter to General Kiszczak 
About the Elections 
Letter from the Gdansk Prison, 1985 
Solidarity 
A Time of Hope 
Hope and Danger 
Darkness on the Horizon 
A Year Has Passed 
The Democratic Opposition
A New Evolutionism 
Some Remarks on the Opposition and the General
Situation in Poland 
The Prague Spring Ten Years Later 
A Lesson in Dignity 
Maggots and Angels 
Historical Essays 
Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors 
The Dispute over Organic Work 
1863: Poland in Russian Eyes 
Conversation in the Citadel 
Index

Reviews

"Michnik is an original, strong voice, and the fierce eloquence of his prose comes across in this translation."
--Publishers Weekly
 
"This former Wunderkind of KOR, now just 40, is at his liveliest and most penetrating in this selection of historical and policial essays from the past decade."
--Martin Malia, Los Angeles Times Book Review
 
"Adam Michnik's eloquent plea for democratic values represents a lesson to us all."
--William Echikson, Christian Science Monitor