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[email protected] AMC 05/10/11 The Polish Review, Vol. LVI, Nos. 1-2, 2011:111-152 ©2011 The Polish Institute of Arts and Sciences of America ANNA M. CIENCIALA THE FOREIGN POLICY OF JÓZEF PIŁSUDSKI AND JÓZEF BECK, 1926-1939: MISCONCEPTIONS AND INTERPRETATIONS1 Interwar Poland is hardly mentioned in current American textbooks on the history of twentieth-century Europe, and even then the information is generally sparse and often misleading. Poland makes an appearance with the Versailles Treaty of 1919, generally considered a bad treaty whose German- Polish settlement is sometimes judged as contrary to the principle of self- determination. Polish armed resistance against the Germans in September 1939 generally goes unmentioned and the Soviet attack on Poland is often explained as dictated by Soviet security. There is usually very little mention of Polish foreign policy, yet it should be studied as a factor in international politics in the interwar period, especially in the years from Hitler‘s rise to power in Germany to his attack on Poland, sparking the outbreak of WW II. The pre-Hitler period is often passed over lightly although it contains the roots of Western attitudes toward Nazi Germany.