Jerzy Kochanowski is Professor at the Faculty of Culture and Arts at the Uniwersytet Warszawski. He was Research Fellow at the German Historical Institute in Warsaw, Visiting Professor at the Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz as well Senior Fellow at the Imre Kertész Kolleg Jena. His main areas of interest are the social and cultural history of Poland and Eastern Europe in the 20th Century.

The cautious expansion of freedoms in the sign of de-Stalinization is remembered in Poland as the "October Thaw of 1956". The renowned historian Jerzy Kochanowski presents an innovative view of this era. He vividly describes the contemporary facts of life as hooliganism and prostitution, work and unemployment, money and corruption, the concept of deliberate motherhood and dreams of having one's own car. The term "revolution" in the title of the book is to be taken literally, because the emotions that gripped Polish society at the time manifested themselves in a variety of ways on the streets. When the "Polish October Revolution" was over, the country was irreversibly changed.