In twenty-four papers scholars from Europe and North America examine various aspects of the economies, politics and culture of Britain and Poland-Lithuania from the Middle Ages down to the Third Partition. The similarities between the two seemingly different regions are as surprising as the long-standing connections between the British Isles and East Central Europe. Commercial ties were complemented by migration and by cultural exchange with writers, philosophers and artists in both regions taking an interest in the other. In sections devoted to religion and toleration, trade, diasporas, political theory, and stereotypes among others the authors present a new and unexpected history of the relationship between two states which politically up to 1795 went in opposite directions.
Contributors are: Richard Butterwick, Nils Hybel, Wendy Childs, Maryanne Kowaleski, Stanka Kuzmova, Sarah Layfield, Richard D Oram, Emilia Jamroziak, Piotr Guzowski, Derek Keene, Tomasz Gromelski, Pawel Rutkowski, Benedict Wagner-Rundell, John Fudge, Brian Levack, Beata Cieszynska, Waldemar Kowalski, Arthur H. Williamson, M.St. Almut Hillebrand, Peter Paul Bajer, Róisín Healy, Dariusz Rolnik, Jan Wolenski, Aleksandra Koutny-Jones.