The eighteenth century is far better served in western languages than its predecessors.

The reader should start with Jerzy Lukowski, Liberty's Folly: the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in the Eighteenth Century, 16971795 (London, 1991). Jzef Andrzej Gierowski, The PolishLithuanian Commonwealth in the XVIIIth Century: from Anarchy to Well-Organised State (Cracow, 1996), provides a more optimistic interpretation, which is, however, less clearly organized. The Saxon period benefits from two of the more authoritative chapters on the Commonwealth in the New Cambridge Modern History: J. A. Gierowski and A. S. Kamiski, The Eclipse of Poland, vol. VI (1970), pp. 681715, and L. R. Lewitter, Poland under the Saxon Kings, vol. VII (1963), pp. 36590. See also the last-named's Peter the Great and the Polish Election of 1697, Cambridge Historical Journal, XII (1956), pp. 12643. His Poland, Russia and the Treaty of Vienna of 5th January 1719, Historical Journal, XIII (1970), pp. 330, deals with perhaps the last opportunity for the Commonwealth to reassert its independence from Russian tutelage. On the Polish-Saxon union, there are several articles by Gierowski. See his Centralization and Autonomy in the Polish-Saxon Union, Harvard Ukrainian Studies, III/IV (1979/80), pp. 27184, Die Union zwischen Polen und Litauen im 16. Jahrhundert und die polnisch-schsische Union des 17./18. Jahrhunderts, in Thomas Frschl (ed.), Fderationsmodelle und Unionsstrukturen. ber Staatenverbindungen in der frhen Neuzeit vom 15. zum 18. Jahrhundert (Munich,1994), pp. 6382, his article in Fedorowicz's A Republic of Nobles, pp. 22338, and Personal- oder Realunion? Zur Geschichte der polnisch-schsichen Beziehungen nach Potawa in Gierowski and Johannes Kalisch (eds), Um die polnische Krone. Sachsen und Polen whrend des Nordischen Krieges 17001721 (Berlin, 1962), pp. 25491. See also Jacek Staszewski, Polen und Sachsen unter August II. Zur Soziotechnik der Herrschaftsausbung, Berliner Jahrbuch fr osteuropische Geschichte (1996). On the 1717 settlement and its aftermath see Gierowski, Reforms in Poland after the dumb Diet (1717), in S. Fiszman (ed.), Constitution and Reform in Eighteenth-Century Poland (Bloomington, IN, 1997), pp. 6585. For Polish-Lithuanian military performance, see Gierowski, The PolishLithuanian Armies in the Confederations and Insurrections in the Eighteenth Century, in G. R. Rothenberg, B. K. Kirly and P. F. Sugar (eds), East Central European Society and War in the Pre-Revolutionary Eighteenth Century (New York, 1982), pp. 21538. On Augustus II, it is difficult to recommend anything until Staszewski's biography (1998) is translated, and that interpretation will itself no doubt be challenged by the research now being undertaken in Russian archives. For the moment, see Gierowski, La France et les tendences absolutistes du roi de Pologne August II, Acta Poloniae Historica, XVII (1968), pp. 4870. Deservedly translated is Staszewski, August III, Kurfrst von Sachsen und Knig von Polen. Eine Biographie (Berlin, 1996). The process of foreign intervention and the failure of political and military reform under Augustus III are explained in Michael G. Mller, Polen zwischen Preuen und Russland. Souvernittskrise und Reformpolitik 17361752 (Berlin, 1983). Stanisaw August Poniatowski's reign has received more attention than any other. The best place to start is the attractively written and intelligently argued biography by Adam Zamoyski, The Last King of Poland (London, 1992). There is now a reasonable introduction available in English to the reforms of the late eighteenth century, in the essays contained in Samuel Fiszman (ed.), Constitution and Reform in Eighteenth-Century Poland: The Constitution of 3 May 1791 (Bloomington, IN, 1997). Particularly relevant are the articles by Jerzy Michalski, Krystyna

Zienkowska, Anna Grzekowiak-Krwawicz, Zofia Libiszowska and Zofia Zieliska. See also Emanuel Rostworowski, La Grande Dite, 178892, rformes et perspectives, Annales Historiques de la Rvolution Franaise, XXXVI (1964), pp. 30828. The constitution itself may be read in the slightly incomplete English translation by Franciszek Bukaty, New Constitution of the Government of Poland (London, 1791) reprinted in the Annual Register for 1791, pp. 177 200. Jerzy Lukowski's interpretative narrative, The Partitions of Poland: 1772, 1793, 1795 (London, 1999), throws much light on the distribution of power within the Commonwealth between the king and successive ambassadors, and points out some of the limits of the Enlightenment. See also his Towards Partition: Polish Magnates and Russian Intervention in Poland during the Early Reign of Stanisaw August Poniatowski, Historical Journal, XXVIII (1985) for the problems posed by Russian interference, and The Szlachta and the Confederacy of Radom, 17641767/8 (Rome, 1977). H. H. Kaplan, The First Partition of Poland (New York, 1962) is best read together with Jerzy Topolski, Reflections on the First Partition of Poland, Acta Poloniae Historica, XXVII (1973), pp. 3955. Ambassador Stackelberg's proconsulate is covered fairly briefly by Daniel Stone, Polish Politics and National Reform, 17751788 (Boulder, CO, 1976). The classic work of Robert H. Lord, The Second Partition of Poland: A Study in Diplomatic History (Cambridge, MA, 1915), is highly critical of Stanisaw August's actions in 179293. It is complemented by the same author's The Third Partition of Poland, Slavonic [and East European] Review, III (192425), pp. 48198. Michael G. Mller, Die Teilungen Polens: 1772 1793 1795 (Munich, 1984), stresses the primacy of external factors. On the Enlightenment, the occasionally tendentious but nevertheless magnificent Jean Fabre, Stanislas-Auguste Poniatowski et l'Europe des lumires. tude de cosmopolitisme (Paris 1952) should be read in conjunction with Jochen Schlobach, Lumires en France, princes clairs et le roi Stanislas Poniatowski, Kwartalnik Neofilologiczny, XII (1995), pp. 93107. Richard Butterwick, Poland's Last King and English Culture: Stanisaw August Poniatowski, 17321798 (Oxford, 1998) examines the role played by the king's Anglophilia in his efforts to bring about political and cultural renewal, and devotes particular attention to his constitutional aims. The same author focuses on Stanisaw August's alternative to republicanism in Two Views of the Polish Monarchy in the Eighteenth Century: the Polemic of Stanisaw August Poniatowski with Stainsaw Leszczyski, Oxford Slavonic Papers, new series, XXX (1997), pp. 2139, and highlights the question of civil and political liberty in Mickiewicz's Republican Heritage: Trends in Polish Political Thought in the Later Eighteenth Century, in Ursula Phillips (ed.), National Identity and Mythology in the Making: Mickiewicz and Messianism (London, 2001). For an examination of some of the key external influences on Polish political thought in the same period, see Jerzy Lukowski, Recasting Utopia: Montesquieu, Rousseau and the Polish Constitution of 3 May 1791, Historical Journal, XXXVII (1994), pp. 6587.