The Solidarity trade union (Niezależny Samorządny Związek Zawodowy “Solidarność”) was the catalyst in the collapse of state socialism in Poland and has been lionized as a key force in the ending of the Cold War. With a peak membership of nearly a third of Poland’s working-age population, Solidarity persevered through state-led oppression to become the main protagonist in the negotiated end to one-party rule in 1989. Its activists went on to define Polish politics of the 1990s. Andrea F. Bohlman has written a deeply original, learned account of the movement and the broader milieu of the Polish opposition to state socialism in the 1980s. Centrally, the book focuses on how solidarity with a lowercase “s”— the abstract notion of coherence and collective belonging—was enacted through sound, music, and aural culture within the Polish opposition. The study is neither an account of how prominent musicians supported Solidarity nor a history of...

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