I: Towards Union
II: Establishing the Union
III: Crisis: 1422-1447
IV: Consolidation and Change
V: Dynasty and Citizenship
VI: Reform
VII: Union Accomplished
Bibliography
Gazeteer
Robert Frost was educated at the universities of St Andrews,
Cracow, and London. After teaching for eighteen years at King's
College London, he moved in 2004 to the University of Aberdeen,
where he currently holds the Burnett Fletcher Chair in History. He
is interested in the history of eastern and northern Europe from
the fourteenth to the nineteenth centuries. His principal research
interests are in the history of Poland-Lithuania, and in the
history of warfare
in the early modern period.
A huge and complex work which will certainly define the contours of
this field for the next generation ... [Frost] has produced a work
that will serve as a comprehensive history, but is, in fact, much
more than that: a fiercely argued and superbly developed study of
what it meant for Poland and Lithuania to join their political
fortunes in the late Middle Ages.
*Larry Wolff, Times Literary Supplement*
an attentive, balanced and scholarly account that engages with the
many historiographical and political disputes in the discourse on
the Polish-Lithuanian union without, however, giving in to the
temptation of providing such politicized conclusions.
*Jolanta Choiinska-Mika, Parliaments, Estates and
Representation*
Volume one is a splendid achievement in its own right: the bar is
now raised for its successor. It remains to note with satisfaction
that the writing is measured and assured, and that Oxford
University Press has produced the book to its usual high
standards.
*Richard Butterwick-Pawlikowski, Slavonic and East European
Review*
this volume is an outstanding contribution to the history of east
central Europe in the late medieval and the beginnings of the early
modern period. Moreover, by his conceptualization of what a 'union'
is in the context of political theory, and how the
Polish-Lithuanian example fits into this, Frost make a nicely
original contribution. Most importantly, his focus on a 'union'
rather than a nation enables him to write with a refreshingly
balanced and judicious outlook that contrasts sharply with the more
passionately presented work by some but not all previous scholars.
Finally, the text of this volume is written in a prose that is not
just fluid, but often graceful and eloquent.
*Professor Paul Knoll, Reviews in History*
This volume meticulously traces the history of the PolishLithuanian
political relationship step by step, over two centuries. It is the
first exhaustive narrative of these events in English ... a useful
contribution to debates on the PolishLithuanian union, and it will
bring those debates to a much wider audience, offering fresh
perspectives for historians in central Europe to mull over ... This
book is the fruit of considerable labour ... and will be read with
interest across central and northern Europe.
*Natalia Nowakowska, History*
Robert Frost has written an outstanding book, as good as it is big
-- a major contribution to the history of the polity linked by the
hyphen in its title, and to the history of early modern Europe. The
book is a major benchmark in Frost's distinguished output
addressing specific aspects of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth's
history, situated in the broad context of its contemporary Europe
... Robert Frost's great achievement is to situate the Commonwealth
of Lithuania and Poland at the highest level of thematic inquiry,
analysis, and expository prose, fully in the company of the best
work concerning comparable questions elsewhere in Europe.
*Piotr Gorecki, The Medieval Review*
[Frost] gives us the opportunity to re-think many concepts of the
union and its definition, and to overcome the narrow image created
by national historiographies, reviving discussions of the union's
assessment at a new level ... [it] arouses creative scientific
thought and discussion, and provides a great impulse to search for
new sources and continue research on the topic of the union.
*Jurate Kiaupiene, Lithuanian Historical Studies*
Such meticulous attention to the historiography of his subject is
one of the great merits of Frost's work, in which he is nothing if
not colorful and unflinching in his judgment of the often
conflicting, confused, or biased interpretations of earlier
historians ... By limiting hid attention in this first volume to
just the years from Krevo to Lublin, Frost manages a far more
focused, nuanced, and richly detailed treatment of political
currents in this crucial formative period than Davies and earlier
historians have been able to offer ... Professor Frost's work is
poised to be the definitive treatment of Poland-Lithuania within
the temporal and topical limitations that he has set for
himself.
*Jay Atkinson, The Sixteenth Century Journal*
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