CEU Press books are now also available on Questia and Myilibrary.

CEU Press books are distributed also in digital version. See the top 20 e-sales from 2005 till June 2008.

Bestsellers on two tracks. Five titles figure both among traditional and digital top 20: A Cardboard Castle, A Biographical Dictionary of Women's Movements, Russian Foreign Policy, Ascensions on High, and Ideologies and National Identities.

"A sharp, thoughtful, graciously written study, based on impressive research in the archives of the French and Italian parties, as well as East German records, for insights into Soviet actions. The book does not change the overall understanding of the positions and roles of the two parties, but it adds much rich detail and subtlety. Summing up: highly recommended". – Choice on Which Socialism, Whose Détente?

"The four case studies provide substantial grist for those interested in generalizations about successful state building. Furthermore, specialists should find the cross-country comparisons on the development of tax regimes interesting. Summing up: recommended." – Choice on State-Building

"Filled with new information and original ideas and offering intriguing incentives for further research, this well-edited volume is not only a remarkable edition to the literature on European eugenics but provides invaluable insights into the broader currents of intellectual life in central and southeast Europe.” – Slavic Review on Blood and Homeland

Both From Solidarity to Martial Law and Islam and Tolerance in Wider Europe are highly recommended by Choice.

In the past few years Carleton University, as well as the Universities of Kansas and Maryland have excelled in adopting CEU Press books for courses. Our most popular titles were Prague Tales, A Life Under Russian Serfdom and Between Past and Future.

"This is the book that I wish someone had given me the day I arrived in Prague" – Prague Post on From Good King Wenceslas to the Good Soldier Svejk





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Polish Liberal Thought before 1918

Maciej Janowski, Institute of History of the Polish Academy of Sciences

"...provides a close reading of the views of individuals little known in the Anglophone world, but who created a distinctively Polish version of liberalism in the 19th century. Without the economic liberalism reflected in western thought, Janowski reveals Polish liberalism to be coherent and dynamic, emphasizing modernization in an effort to enable the Polish lands to 'catch up,' and consequently reflecting a more positive view of the state than the position taken by, for example, English liberals... Recommended. All levels/libraries." - Choice


Based on solid research, this erudite study is a first attempt at presenting a comprehensive analysis of nineteenth-century Polish liberalism. Polish liberal tradition has generally been considered weak or even nonexistent. Janowski, on the other hand, argues that nineteenth-century Poland inherited a strong protoliberal tradition from the nobility-based democracy, and that in the mid-nineteenth century, liberalism was a dominant trend in Polish intellectual life, even if it rarely appeared in its pure form and did not create political movements separating liberal aims from patriotic ones.

The author maintains that the definition of liberalism in Central Europe should not be based on the Anglo-Saxon model, in view of the weakness of the middle classes and, in the case of partitioned Poland, the lack of independent statehood. This explains why there was a marked etatist trend among liberal thinkers, who saw the creation of a strong state as a tool of modernization.

Janowski sees his subject in a broad comparative perspective, taking into account the historical experience of other nations of Central Europe. His innovative interpretation may be the starting point for new debates in the ongoing discussion on the different perceptions of liberalism.

2004
294 pages
ISBN 978-963-9241-18-3 cloth $44.95 / €37.95 / £28.95

 

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