A short but jam-packed history of the 1919-1920 Polish Soviet war, covering military, diplomatic, political, & historiographical aspects. The style is sometimes dated, but the book is a very quick read. I picked up this book because it was cited in the Wikipedia article about the 1919-1920 Polish-Soviet war. I was curious if there are parallels between then & the Russian-Ukrainian war & also because I wondered how it was that horse cavalry played such a major role in a war that took place right after the First World War, which is widely seen as the end of horse cavalry in warfare. The latter question is answered pretty well in the 1st 50 pages (the distances involved in the war, & shortages of modern weapons such as artillery & even bullets on both sides). The book took longer to answer the 1st question (the answer is “not really”), which is unsurprising considering that it was written 50 years before the question could be asked. White Eagle Red Star has a lot of commentary on the state of historical memory of the Polish-Soviet War, taking issue with both Soviet & Polish “apologists”, & with other western European historians & commentators. Reading this makes me want to read more about the Russian Revolution, & especially about the Ukrainian Anarchists, who got a brief mention on page 119. I like the Polish pronunciation guide at the beginning; maybe I’ll copy it for future reference.