Books, Arts & Manners

The Liberation of One, by Romuald Spa-sowki (Harcourt Brace, 687 pp., $24.95)

In 1772, Catherine the Great signed a secret agreement with Prussia and Austria to partition Poland “in order to re-establish order inside this country and to give it a political existence more in conformity with the interests of its neighbors.” Those preambular words of the treaty signed in St. Petersburg more than two centuries ago have the ring of modernity about them, except that now the code word would be “socialism.”

AB

About the Author

Arnold Beichman

Featured Tags

The Liberation of One, by Romuald Spa-sowki (Harcourt Brace, 687 pp., $24.95)

In 1772, Catherine the Great signed a secret agreement with Prussia and Austria to partition Poland “in order to re-establish order inside this country and to give it a political existence more in conformity with the interests of its neighbors.” Those preambular words of the treaty signed in St. Petersburg more than two centuries ago have the ring of modernity about them, except that now the code word would be “socialism.”