Brendan Karch is Assistant Professor of History at Louisiana State University.

Introduction; 1. The battle before: Catholicism and the making of upper Silesians, 1848-1890; 2. Nationalism's debut: imagining a Polish community, 1890-1914; 3. Breakdown: World War I and the upper Silesian plebiscite, 1914-1921; 4. The Weimar gap: democracy and nationalism, 1922-1933; 5. Reprieve: Jews between Germany, Poland, and the League of Nations; 6. The instrumental Volksgemeinschaft: making 'loyal' Germans, 1933-1944; 7. The postwar ultimatum: making 'loyal' Poles after 1945; Epilogue.