The passion of Poland, from Solidarity through the state of war

the long version

The Passion of Poland brings together for the first time the complete four-part New Yorker series on the rise and fall of solidarity from its birth in Gdansk through the ravages of martial law. A young reporter's brilliant first-person account, this series has been hailed by critics as the most vivid and possibly most thoughtful yet to appear on Poland's failed revolution. Lawrence Weschler's reports take the reader unforgettably into the midst of Solidarity's remarkable "self-limiting revolution" and later into the strange, subtle, often quirky, and finally horrifying "self-limiting counterrevolution" that followed when General Jaruzelski imposed martial law. They also evoke the twin mysteries of what it is that gets repressed when a place - any place - comes alive; and what it is that gets repressed when a place - any place - gets repressed. In his epilogue, which covers events through the Pope's summer 1983 visit, Weschler concludes with a meditation on perhaps the greatest wonder of all, how the spirit of resistance in Poland persists in the face of withering repression. -- from back cover.