This collection of fourteen essays, completed around 2015, brings together sixteen scholars, most of them political scientists from Poland, under the oversight of an editorial team led by Sabrina P. Ramet of the Norwegian University of Science and Technology.Their efforts cover a wide range of subjects relating to current day Polish politics and political culture in what Ramet sees as a struggle between those who are engaged in promoting “civic and uncivic values” (p. xv). Civic values are defined as commitment to “the rule of law, individual rights, tolerance, respect for the harm principle, equality and neutrality of the state in matters of religion,” while “uncivic values” are identified with “the rule of a dictator or dictatorial party, contempt for individual rights, bigotry, disrespect for the harm principle, treatment of people as unequals whether through discrimination or exploitation, and state favoritism of one religion over others.” Three essays are devoted to analyzing Polish politics since 1989. Three others deal with the place of religion in Polish public life, in particular the Church's role in matters having to do with gender issues and the problem of antisemitism. Another looks at how successive Polish governments since World War II have treated the mass media. Others take up a variety of topics involving attitudes, values, and public policy and the teaching of history in the schools, popular music, film, and ethnic minorities.A major, if not the major, theme overshadowing the work involves the impact of the 2015 parliament and presidential elections won by the Law and Justice Party (Prawo i Spawiedliwość, PiS). Indeed, in gaining an absolute majority of the seats in the Sejm, the country's principle legislative and policy-making body, the party achieved what had never happened since the birth of Poland's Third Republic in 1989. Several of the contributions, most notably by Jane Leftwich Curry (on the government and the mass media), and the introduction and concluding essays by Ramet, underscore a concern over what PiS rule can mean for the future of democracy and civic values in Poland. And given the party's victories in the Sejm and presidential elections, in 2019 and 2020 respectively, their concerns retain their currency.All of the articles judiciously present their findings and deserve a serious reading. And as Professor Ramet rightly reminds readers, Poland's evolving political culture has, sadly, received precious little scholarly attention, despite its importance as a political system and, one could add, its remarkable recent history (p. xv).A few of this work's countless interesting, research-based (if perhaps arguable) observations and conclusions might be noted here. For example, in his extensive discussion of Polish politics since 1989, Alexander Zdrakovsky nicely summarizes the Poles’ success—in very difficult conditions—in writing a constitution in the spirit of the European Union's “Copenhagen Criteria.” These set forth the requirements for Poland's admission into the EU and included an “adherence to institutions guaranteeing the rule of law and human rights” (p. 23).Michał Słowikowski and Michał Pierzgalski, in covering Poland's political party system and voting since 1989, analyze Poles’ seeming ambivalence about democratic government and the value of parties, based on surveys (the latest of which was completed in 2012). They note that only 25 percent of those surveyed expressed an absolute commitment to democracy. They also report only 5 percent expressed an absolute opposition to democracy (p. 64). They go on to discuss the respondents’ highly negative opinions about political parties.But one wonders if this ambivalence, even cynicism, is understandable given the hardships several generations of Poles have endured? Indeed, it took the leaders of the Third Republic a decade to transform Poland's moribund economy bequeathed by the clueless communist regime that collapsed in 1989. And before its demise, that same regime had mismanaged the country into a fifteen-year-long depression. As for the distrust of parties, might this be at least partly explained by a bad early Third Republic decision—to elect the Sejm by proportional representation? Its consequences have been a friction-filled multi-party system, with elected deputies beholden to national party leaders, not their local constituencies. And despite their seeming low support for democracy, Polish voters have not sent a single expressly anti-democratic party to the parliament in the nine elections held since 1991.In his piece, Maciej Potz provides an interesting analysis of the challenges facing the Catholic Church as a political factor in overwhelmingly Catholic Poland. He notes the wise decision against forming an expressly Catholic party in favor of operating as an interest group. That decision has brought some substantial successes, though not without some disadvantages as he points out. On the ever-salient antisemitism issue, Ireneusz Krzemiński also covers things in an impressive manner. Along the way he also provides some perspective by noting that in a country of 40 million people with fewer than 7,000 Jewish Poles (p. 86), antisemitic attitudes occupy only a marginal place in popular concerns (p. 177). Furthermore, they are on the decline (p. 180).This impressive compilation of essays might have been further enriched had the editors expanded their horizons a bit. For one thing, one wonders why there is no substantial chapter on the amazing story of Poland's Solidarity movement and the character and impact of its members’ values. Indeed, Solidarity receives just thirteen glancing references. But the human rights values Solidarity represented, values backed by a Pope from Catholic Poland, do deserve great attention, since they are the foundation of what became the Third Republic.While the essays on Poland's politics are generally helpful, the orientations of its parties need to be better understood. Indeed, do terms like “left” and “right” indicate what parties like the Civic Platform (Platforma Obywatelska) and PiS are about? This reviewer thinks not. To put things into American terms, the Civic Platform is really more like the pre-Donald Trump Republican party—in its economic liberalism and cautious secularism on matters having to do with personal ethics and religious beliefs. Law and Justice is “populist” not “right wing”—making it more like the pre-Vietnam War Democratic party. In this sense it is the “more left,” “working class” big government party in Poland, especially since the post-Communist SLD Party is, mercifully, no longer a serious factor in elections.Looking at things this way, and recognizing their roots in Solidarity, Civic Platform and Law and Justice may be viewed as its Cain- and Abel-like offspring. In a way, they even resemble the early American Federalists of Hamilton and Jefferson's Anti-Federalists, the feuding sons of the American Revolution of 1776.Notwithstanding these comments, this reviewer hopes this serious and substantial publication finds an audience.