I've been traveling throughout Poland, absorbing historical facts and dates. Couple these factoids with the people I've met and come to know, their worldview, their likes, dislikes, prejudices, personalities... Their interpretation of the past... Their expectations for the future.

And in my typical binary way I've wanted to shove all this into a simple cause-and-effect equation that I could use to understand the people here... and explain to others.

Luckily for me, a book showed up in my BookBub email - Poland by James Michener. ($2.99!)

Wow! I'm only 10% in but already I'm learning about so many of the places I've visited. Malbork Castle, Krakow, etc.

For instance, Genghis Khan and his Muslim Tatar horsemen regularly sacked southern Poland and "Golden Krakow", burning buildings to the ground, looting, killing and raping.

In winter break I visited Malbork Castle, and there I read glowing explanations of how the (German) Teutonic Knights were sent by His Holiness The Pope to bring Christianity to the pagans of Poland and Lithuania. This started in 1230, but in reality Poland had been Christianized since 966.

What I'm learning now is that this order had failed in their original mission in Jerusalem from 1190, and were searching for a home base when a minor Prince in northern Poland asked the Pope for some assistance fending off pagan mauraders from the east. The Teutonic Knights wrote a contract with the Prince (which he didn't understand) that they would come... and stay forever.

While these knights presented to the Pope and to the people of Western Europe a visage of piety against hordes of hairy, dirty pagans, in actuality the Order was making huge landgrabs, replacing the native peoples with Germans, monopolizing the trading of amber, and generally creating a giant Germanic country under their rule. (Deja vu!)

One thing coalescing in my mind is that, because of the inherent orderly nature and arrogant superiority of the Germans, the Poles developed a strong dislike for centralized rule. Which may explain culturally their inability to defend themselves from invaders over the millenia.

I shall see.