Synopses & Reviews
An evocative account of fourteen European kingdoms-their rise, maturity, and eventual disappearance.
There is something profoundly romantic about lost civilizations. Europe's past is littered with states and kingdoms, large and small, that are scarcely remembered today, and while their names may be unfamiliar-Aragon, Etruria, the Kingdom of the Two Burgundies-their stories should change our mental map of the past. We come across forgotten characters and famous ones-King Arthur and Macbeth, Napoleon and Queen Victoria, right up to Stalin and Gorbachev-and discover how faulty memory can be, and how much we can glean from these lost empires. Davies peers through the cracks in the mainstream accounts of modern-day states to dazzle us with extraordinary stories of barely remembered pasts, and of the traces they left behind.
This is Norman Davies at his best: sweeping narrative history packed with unexpected insights. Vanished Kingdoms will appeal to all fans of unconventional and thought-provoking history, from readers of Niall Ferguson to Jared Diamond.
Review
"Should be compulsory reading... Rips away at many of our lazy assumptions about the outcome of the Second World War."andnbsp;andmdash;
The Guardian, London
and#91;Daviesandrsquo;and#93; knowledge and his passion are displayed in this notable book. His research among Polish and Soviet sources is exhaustive...andnbsp;andmdash;Max Hastings, Sunday Telegraph (London)
Review
“An alternative history of Europe that is . . . densely packed yet commendably accessible, magisterial, and uncommonly humane.” The Boston Globe
Review
“Hugely ambitious . . . From the mists, Mr. Davies summons the kingdoms; he records their emergence, their flowering and their demise—whether by ‘internall diseases’ or ‘forraign warre’ in Thomas Hobbes’s words. And he examines the traces that the kingdoms have left behind, in works of art or a piece of rock or perhaps just a place name.” The Wall Street Journal
Review
“Davies resurrects the lands and peoples that were lost in the brutal tide of history. . . . It takes a tremendous feat of empathy to write about countries and peoples that no longer exist. And the amount of information in Vanished Kingdoms that will be new to all but the most expert students of European history is staggering. . . . Fascinating facts and insights flutter on its many pages.” San Francisco Chronicle
Review
“Davies is well known as an iconoclast who punctures the comforting myths of countries that history has blessed. . . . Vanished Kingdoms gives full rein to his historical imagination and enthusiasms, imparting a powerful sense of places lost in time. All across Europe ghosts will bless him for telling their long-forgotten stories.”
The Economist
Review
“Davies is certainly one of the best British historical writers of the past half century, and every gauntlet he throws down is bejeweled. His literary gifts and his capacity for what he nicely calls ‘imaginative sympathy’ are stretched to their limits by this challenging project. . . . Yet Davies succeeds, and it is quite a success.”
Timothy Snyder, The Guardian (London)
Review
andnbsp;
andldquo;Hugely ambitious . . .andnbsp;From the mists, Mr. Davies summons the kingdoms; he records their emergence, their flowering and their demiseandmdash;whether by andlsquo;internall diseasesandrsquo; or andlsquo;forraign warreandrsquo; in Thomas Hobbesandrsquo;s words. And he examines the traces that the kingdoms have left behind, in works of art or a piece of rock or perhaps just a place name.andrdquo;
Review
andnbsp;
andldquo;An alternative history of Europe that is . . . densely packed yet commendably accessible, magisterial and uncommonly humane.andrdquo;
Review
andldquo;An alternative history of Europe that is . . . densely packed yet commendably accessible, magisterial, and uncommonly humane.andrdquo;
Review
“Densely packed yet commendably accessible, magisterial and uncommonly humane.” —The Boston Globe
Review
“Hugely ambitious . . . From the mists, Mr. Davies summons the kingdoms; he records their emergence, their flowering and their demise—whether by ‘internall diseases’ or ‘forraign warre’ in Thomas Hobbes’s words. And he examines the traces that the kingdoms have left behind, in works of art or a piece of rock or perhaps just a place name.” —Wall Street Journal
Review
“Davies resurrects the lands and peoples that were lost in the brutal tide of history. . . . He is presenting knowledge gained over a long lifetime of research. It takes a tremendous feat of empathy to write a detailed tome about countries and peoples that no longer exist. And the amount of information in Vanished Kingdoms that will be new to all but the most expert students of European history is staggering. . . . Fascinating facts and insights flutter on its many pages.”—San Francisco Chronicle
Review
“Davies has written short histories of 15 nations and states in a substantive volume that shows how so many past peoples have intertwined with the larger world and shaped it even after they are forgotten in the sands of time . . . an efficient, lively and important work, an outstanding addition to the histories of the human race.” —Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Review
“Davies is well known as an iconoclast who punctures the comforting myths of countries that history has blessed . . . Vanished Kingdoms gives full rein to his historical imagination and enthusiasms, imparting a powerful sense of places lost in time. All across Europe ghosts will bless him for telling their long-forgotten stories.” —The Economist
Review
“Davies performs autopsies of Europe’s cadaver-states, and like a skilled mortician he has a gift for making them appear lifelike. . . . There are wonders in this book worth discovering.” —The Nation
Review
“Davies is certainly one of the best British historical writers of the past half century, and every gauntlet he throws down is bejeweled. His literary gifts and his capacity for what he nicely calls ‘imaginative sympathy’ are stretched to their limits by this challenging project. . . . Yet Davies succeeds, and it is quite a success.” —Timothy Snyder, The Guardian
Review
“Brilliant . . . Davies asks us to contemplate European history in an entirely different way, seeing the map as a shifting patchwork of claims and identities, its complexion always changing, some states dying, others making unexpected revivals. . . . Vanished Kingdoms is distinguished by his extraordinary intellectual ambition and lovely eye for detail.” —Dominic Sandbrook, Sunday Times (London)
Synopsis
One of the most dramatic and shameful episodes in World War II was the doomed Warsaw uprising of 1944andmdash;an uprising that failed because the Allies betrayed it. Now that story comes to its full terrible life in this gripping account by the bestselling historian Norman Davies.
In August 1944, encouraged by the advance of the Red Army, the Polish Resistance poured forty thousand fighters into the streets of Warsaw to reclaim the city from the hated Germans. But Stalin condemned the uprising as a criminal venture. For sixty-three days the Wehrmacht methodically set about crushing the rebellion and destroying the city. Following the battleandrsquo;s desperate progress through the cellars and sewers of Warsaw, Rising andrsquo;44 retrieves its subject from the shadows of history, revealing its pivotal importance to the outcome of World War II and the Cold War that followed.
Synopsis
One of the world?s leading historians re- examines World War II and its outcome A clear-eyed reappraisal of World War II that offers new insight by reevaluating well-established facts and pointing out lesser-known ones, No Simple Victory asks readers to reconsider what they know about the war, and how that knowledge might be biased or incorrect. Norman Davies poses simple questions that have unexpected answers: Can you name the five biggest battles of the war? What were the main political ideologies that were contending for supremacy? The answers to these questions will surprise even those who feel that they are experts on the subject.
Davies has established himself as a preeminent scholar of World War II . No Simple Victory is an invaluable contribution to twentieth-century history and an illuminating portrait of a conflict that continues to provoke debate.
Synopsis
From the bestselling author of Europe: A History comes a uniquely ambitious masterpiece that will thrill fans of lost civilizations While Germany, Italy, France, and England dominate our conceptions of Europe, these modern states are relatively recent constructs. In this brilliant work of historical reconstruction, Norman Davies brings back to life the long-forgotten empire of Aragon, which once controlled the Western Mediterranean; the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, once the largest country in Europe, and the Kingdom of the Rock, founded by ancient Britons when neither England nor Scotland existed. In the tradition of Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel, Davies subverts our established view of the past and urges us to reconsider the impetus for the rise and fall of nations.
About the Author
Norman Davies is a supernumerary Fellow of Wolfson College, Oxford, Fellow of the British Academy and of the Royal Historical Society, and Professor Emeritus at London University. His books include Europe: A History (a New York Times Notable Book), The Isles: A History, and the definitive history of Poland, God’s Playground.
Table of Contents
Rising '44
Foreword List of Illustrations
350/XXX/999 TO8 DE1
Part One. Before the Rising
Chapter I: The Allied Coalition
Chapter II: The German Occupation
Chapter III: Eastern Approaches
Chapter IV: Resistance
Part Two. The Rising
Chapter V: The Warsaw Rising
Outbreak; Impasse; Attrition; Junction; Finale
Part Three. After the Rising
Chapter VI: Vae Victis: Woe to the Defeated, 1944-45
Chapter VII: Stalinist Repression, 1945-56
Chapter VIII: Echoes of the Rising, 1956-2000
Interim Report
Appendices
Notes
Notes to Capsules
Notes to Appendices
Index