Sociologists have long been among the most influential of Polish intellectuals. When the old regime fell, many had been active in the political opposition and now saw themselves as legitimators of the new one. Capitalism they explained simply as a “normal” system to which citizens must learn to conform. Those who lost out were often blamed for their own fate. In recent years, this history has become a source of embarrassment. Also, the political tide has turned; few today defend the harsh neoliberal turn.

This book critiques this legacy and looks at the transformation not from the perspective of “necessary” change and what “must” occur, but from that of regular people who confronted a new world without knowing its rules. The many chapters here are fully coherent methodologically: all are “linguistically grounded analyses of autobiographical accounts of ordinary people” (33). This narrative biographical approach has deep roots in Polish sociology, pioneered by Florian Znaniecki a hundred years ago, and used frequently by the Łódź sociologists who are the collective authors of this volume. It is not the same as oral history. Instead of asking questions about historical events their interlocutors might have participated in, the researchers ask their informants to tell their own individual histories, in whatever way and about whatever topics they choose. Each interview begins the same way: “Please tell me the story of your life from your earliest memories up to today.” Each informant is allowed to take as long as they wish to answer, without interruption. The interviewer then asks questions aimed at clearing up loose threads or allowing an abandoned line of thought to continue.

What we read here are analyses of these interviews, one or two per chapter, with sample quotes. The aim is a phenomenological analysis that, in the quoted words of Fritz Schütze (Alfred Schütz is also frequently invoked), “pays attention to how macro-historical processes and their involved social processes and mechanisms are personally experienced and interpreted” (28–29).

The result is a fascinating overview of the changed lives of Poles who are today from their 70s to their 20s. For example, what stands out about the oldest generation, born in the 1940s and 1950s, is the rootedness and security of their lives, until the systemic transformation. They had jobs, careers, and workplaces, all taken for granted. They did not have many things—Chapter 6 discusses the “biography of things” in the narratives of different cohorts—but they had a sense of permanence, some part of which they hoped would soon end, but when it did they had to deal with unprecedented uncertainty and new interpersonal conflicts at the workplace now that hierarchy became negotiable rather than assigned.

This generation rarely spoke about the Great Events of the 1980s, such as Solidarność, martial law, or the Round Table accords. About the only discussion of Solidarność comes from a female textile worker in Łódź (Chapter 7): how she distrusted the union due to the macho and flirtatious comportments of the male Solidarity leaders. The interviews remind us that except for the most politically engaged, most people experience and interpret history mainly through its private ramifications.

Most of the book focuses on younger cohorts. Between 2014 and 2019 the project team conducted ninety biographical interviews, thirty each from those born in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, all from smaller cities rather than successful international conglomerates like Warsaw, Kraków, or Wrocław. These cohorts experienced systemic transformation in dramatically different ways. Those born in the 1960s faced a fuzzy world as they came into adulthood. The old order appeared to be fading, but never decisively, so they were always unsure of the criteria according to which they should map out their futures. Children of the 1980s, meanwhile, entered conscious life with uncertainty and unrootedness, as well as opportunities which they tried to access, often unsuccessfully, through education. Their lives are constantly changing responses to random events and opportunities. They speak of precarity as if it were entirely natural.

The methodology of biographical narrative mandates that the interviewer refuse to impose any framework on the narrator. The book's contributors follow this guideline also in their analysis: they offer “no synthesizing generalizations and summaries” (599). On the one hand, the book is a goldmine of information about lived experiences in diverse socio-economic arrangements. (The youngest cohort appears to be experiencing global capitalism, though think the problem is rooted in national backwardness.) As to what all the talk means, conclusions need to be drawn by the reader. Even my brief analysis of cohort experiences from the previous paragraph comes from my own comparison of the narratives. Analyses tend to highlight relevance to the field of phenomenological inquiry, with frequent references to concepts in that field. I wished the authors had occasionally jumped out of the role of dispassionate presenter of life histories and told readers what they think is going on, though perhaps that wish counters the methodology to which the authors are loyal.

One weakness is the limited class range of informants, most of whom are moderately successful, self-reflexive individuals. “Reaching people without education, unemployed, socially excluded turned out to be very difficult” (38). Why not go into a workers’ hostel or unemployment office and ask around? Or perhaps they did but found status barriers to articulated self-reflection? More discussion of the problem is in order.

While scholars will find the book particularly useful, each chapter is a formidable contribution which could be used and mined by students to understand how regular people make sense of and experience their lives. We can choose Róża (Chapter 2), born in 1975, with a host of jobs and a life of precarity lived according to a religious conviction that things will “work out somehow.” Or Leszek (Chapter 3), born in 1964, the raconteur philosopher-taxi driver with the father who served in the SS and a life trajectory out of Candide. Or the three aspiring young professional women born in the early 1980s (Chapter 10), whose calculations ultimately depend largely on chance. Or the discussion of the structural traps of poverty (Chapter 13), and the tendency of the poor to blame themselves.

In the end, the authors succeed in rejecting the morally-laden instructions on how people ought to behave at times of change and show us instead how real people, with wisdom derived from astute observation of the opportunities and constraints facing them, actually make choices.