ABSTRACT
The consequences of Poland’s central location in Europe without defensible frontiers to the east or west have already been discussed in the historical overview in Chapter 1 as have the domestic repercussions in terms of clashing Eastern or Western priorities, and in modern times anti-Russian or anti-German orientations. Adam Bromke married these underlying external factors with domestic dynamics to produce a comprehensive explanation of Poland’s modern history in terms of cyclical swings between the dominance of idealist and realist tendencies. 1 His ideas have been criticised but they were accepted as a compelling interpretation until the fundamental transformation of the European framework in the late 1980s.
