The Forgotten Appeasement of 1920 examines a turning point in East European history: the summer of 1920, when Lenin's Soviet Russia decided to challenge the Versailles system and launch a military attack on the continent.

Andrzej Nowak is Professor of East European History at the Jagiellonian University. His research focuses on Polish and Russian history and comparative studies of empires. He has published many books including a multivolume History of Poland, History and Geopolitics, and Metamorphoses of the Russian Empire: 1721-1921.

Part 1: The dream of an independent Poland and "concepts of the world" 1. Trouble with Polish independence 2. Limits to the power (and imagination) of the winners: a view from Versailles 3. Was Pilsudski a tool in French hands? France and Poland's Eastern policy (January - April 1920) 4. Powerlessness: Washington respecting the Soviet Empire and the threat to Polish independence. Part 2: The Polish crisis: a short course 1. Between Lloyd George's brand of peace and peace - Pilsudski style (January - April 1920) 2. The game for Ukraine (May 1920) 3. Toward the Curzon Line (June - July 1920) 4. The Politburo's response (July 1920) 5. Peace at any price (to Poland) Part 3: How does the imperial brain work? 1. Balfour, or shunning chaos 2. Lewis Namier, or revenge on a map (of Poland) 3. Kerr and Hankey, the two secretaries 4. The right man in the wrong place: Horace Rumbold in Warsaw 5. Lloyd George and his powerless ministers Curzon and Churchill 6. The Vox Populi and its representatives 7. The brainstorm and its "appeasement" (June - August 1920) 8. Coda Part 4: Polish annexes and questions 1. Left hand side free: Pilsudski's policy of appeasement 2. Questions about the Peace of Riga