Neither German Nor Pole: Catholicism and National Indifference in a Central European Borderland (Social History, Popular Culture, And Politics In Germany)

"This is a fascinating local story with major implications for studies of nationalism and regional identities throughout Europe more generally."---Dennis Sweeney, University of Alberta"James Bjork has produced a finely crafted, insightful, indeed, pathbreaking study of the interplay between religious and national identity in late nineteenth-century Central Europe."---Anthony Steinhoff, University of Tennessee at ChattanoogaNeither German nor Pole examines how the inhabitants of one of Europe's most densely populated industrial districts managed to defy clear-cut national categorization, even in the heyday of nationalizing pressures at the turn of the twentieth century. As James E. Bjork argues, the "civic national" project of turning inhabitants of Upper Silesia into Germans and the "ethnic national" project of awakening them as Poles both enjoyed successes, but these often canceled one another out, exacerbating rather than eliminating doubts about people'