In this first comprehensive study of Plato's conception of justice, the recognition of human dignity plays a crucial role for understanding the individual in relation to the law and state. Plato's philosophy turns out to provide foundations for modern-day human rights protection rather than for totalitarian approaches.
This monograph deals with Polish foreign policy shortly before the outbreak of the Second World War. In tracing the diplomatic activity of foreign minister Józef Beck, it discusses six general problems: (1) the Polish political situation under the pressure of appeasement; (2) the project of Intermarium and efforts to implement it; (3) the action against Czechoslovakia and the conflict with the Soviet Union; (4) the Polish attitude towards the German concept of Gesamtlosung in Germany's relations with Poland; (5) the genesis of the Polish alliance with Great Britain; (6) the Allies' military inaction after Nazi Germany's aggression. In these conditions, Poland made four key decisions: it stood against Czechoslovakia, it rejected German demands, it allied itself with the United Kingdom, and it rejected the Soviet Union's claim for the Red Army to march across Polish lands.
Poland - foreign policy - international relations - appeasement - Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact - Second World War - Józef Beck - Intermarium
Marek Kornat is a professor employed at the Tadeusz Manteuffel Institute of History at the Polish Academy of Sciences and the Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski University in Warsaw. His academic work includes studies on the history of Poland's diplomacy and international relations in the nineteenth and the twentieth centuries, the historiography of totalitarian regimes, and Sovietology.
