Poverty

Bronislaw Geremek was lecturer at the Sorbonne (1960-1965) were he also directed the Centre for Polish Civilization until 1966. In 1965 he was appointed head of the Research Unit on the History of Medieval Culture at the Polish Academy of Sciences. For the next twenty years he was closely involved in dissident circles in Poland, taking a central role in the founding of the Solidarity trade union in Gdansk in the early 1980s. Professor Geremek still plays an important role in Poland's politics while now continuing his teaching and research both in Warsaw and in Paris.

"A wise, distinguished medieval historian, veteran of Poland's own battles with poverty, here extends himself over a millennium and a continent to illuminate the constantly-changing social conditions, definitions, explanations, political measures, and charitable actions by which Europeans have generated, mitigated, and stigmatized material hardship." Charles Tilly "A serious, meticulously researched history, Geremek's is a fine account of a fascinating and perennially topical subject." Literary Review

• Foreword. Introduction: What is Poverty?.1. The Middle Ages: Charity and Salvation.2. The Disintegration of Medieval Society.3. Reformation and Repression: the 1520s.4. The Reform of Charity.5. Charitable Polemics: Local Politics and Reasons of State.6. Prisons of Enlightenment.7. Poverty and the Contemporary World.Notes.Bibliography.Index.