Customer Reviews

Poland (Insight Guides)

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What an outstanding resource! I am a college professor who takes groups of students to Poland in the summer. I have done this for the past 3 years. I always want them to know enough about the history and culture of Poland so they understand the country while we are there. I have chosen this book as the "textbook" for this summer's "Summer Study Abroad." I am also very happy that there is a new 2000 edition since Poland (and all of eastern Europe) changes almost daily since the fall of the Iron Curtain.

I know that some other professors would say "Oh - it's not scholarly enough." True - but I would rather have them know what Insight provides about the culture than to assign a text that is so esoteric that they won't read anything about it. Insight Poland provides me with just such a book - they read it and like it!

The narratives about the country are great, the pictures of the culture are wonderful, and the travel information is enough so anyone could get around Poland effectively.

Most of all, I know that the students will read it. Why? Because it catches their attention and keeps them involved in the descriptions - whether it's history or architecture or music or art or food! Not all textbooks we assign meet with such success, that's for sure!

I also have provided this book to some of my colleagues who will be traveling there this Spring. In doing so, they also mentioned how much they have liked every Insight Guide they have used - which is three or four - and were very happy to know that there is one for Poland.

Buy it - you'll like it!

No travel guide can tell you everything about a country, but all good ones offer you a "100 meter view" and some can get even lower than that. The Insight Guide gives you the 10,000 meter view of Poland.

Indeed, it's the Poland Chamber of Commerce 10,000 meter view: Unlike better guides, Insight Guides Poland never says anything critical, carefully following the old rule which says that if you can't say something nice, say nothing at all. And it is very good at saying nothing at all.

The guide is, admittedly, lavishly illustrated with photos; so lavishly, in fact, that it is tempting to call it the perfect guide for people who want to see what Poland is like without actually ever having to go there.

The guide has other good points, as well. The background articles at the beginning of the book are quite good (and they don't pull away from the negative nearly so much as the travel sections do), the maps aren't bad, the writing is clear, the how-to-travel data isn't too bad, and the photos are, indeed, gorgeous.

Though the photos are excellent, they're also the book's greatest weakness. Were it not for the photos, the guide would probably serve just fine for a first visit to Poland by someone who knows nothing about the country and who will only be in each city or area for a day or two. As it is, however, the photos make it huge and heavy - the text to image ratio must be, by area, close to one to one - and with the airlines' tiny baggage allowances, this brick of a book is simply too inefficient.

It's a nice book to browse through at the bookstore to see if you might want to go to Poland (and you should); but if it makes you decide to actually go, drop it back on the shelf and choose a better and more practical guide to actually take with you. The Blue Guide (the most erudite, academic, and detailed) and Lonely Planet (the best balanced between fun and learning, with ample detail) guides are excellent, and I'm sure that there are other good ones that I've not seen.

This book is awesome for education. But horrible if you are relaying on it when traveling in Poland.
I usually buy the "DK Eyewitness Travel guide" books but could not find one for Poland so I got this one.. and was very dissapointed in it. Compared to the "DK eyewitness travel guides".. it stinks.