Pedalling Poland

Pedalling Poland by Bernard Newman
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I was motivated to read this book when I learned it has been recently published in Poland.
Firstly I found the idea strange - to publish a sort of cyclist's memories some 90 years after they have been originally published.
The second reservation was - memories from cycling trip.
My own experience says, that it cannot avoid frequent references to condition of the roads and some details of cycling effort.
That's correct - I would say it takes some 20% of the book.
What remains?
Many, many scenes from the world which no longer exists.
Poland between world wars was a strange country.
It has been created at the conference table in Versailles after 123 years of non-existence. Politicians who created it, had to consider interests of many countries and a very volatile political climate. In the effect, Poland had a very irregular shape and included few areas boiling with political conflicts.
Effect on the book - we read quite a number of stories from a very volatile world, which was doomed for disappearance and which disappeared.
Here I give credit to the author for being an honest and compassionate judge.
On the other side - personally I do not find such scenes enriching, after reading them I felt rather empty.
Important point - the author is quite optimistic about the future of Nazism. He acknowledges economic progress it brought to Germany and is absolutely sure that in years to come, this orderly and hard working nation will turn it in a good way.
How wrong!
In the last scenes of the book, the author visits a site of a battle of Tannenberg - a massacre of Russian Army in early stages of WWI. Nazis build there a gigantic memorial glorifying the victors and it looks like the author was strongly and positively impressed by it.
I found it very disappointing.

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