Catholics on the Barricades: Poland, France, and "Revolution," 1891-1956 (Yale-Hoover Series on Authoritarian Regimes)

  Seeking to change the way we understand the Catholic Church, World War II, the Cold War, and communism, this study centers on the idea of “revolution.” It examines two crucial countries, France and Poland, while challenging conventional wisdom among historians and introducing innovations in periodization, geography, and methodology. Kosicki helps to understand the crises of contemporary Europe by examining the intellectual world of Roman Catholicism in Poland and France between the Church's declaration of war on socialism in 1891 and the demise of Stalinism in 1956.. In Poland in the 1940s and '50s, a new kind of Catholic intended to remake European social and political life—not with guns, but French philosophy This collective intellectual biography examines generations of deeply religious thinkers whose faith drove them into public life, including Karol Wojtya, future Pope John Paul II, and Tadeusz Mazowiecki, the future prime minister who would disma

"An extraordinary scholarly contribution that is essential reading for all historians of twentieth century Europe.”—Paul Hanebrink, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey