A Global Journey into History

Beneath Another Sky

Human history is a tale not just of constant change, but of perpetual restlessness. In Beneath Another Sky the esteemed historian Norman Davies embarks upon a journey round the world to show the layers of experience that underpin our present - and brilliantly complicate our view of the past. 
 
'If you are someone, or know someone, who is romanced by stamps, or maps, or names, or journeys, or plaques, then I recommend this book to you. I loved it. It deserves a shelf of its own' David Aaronovitch, The Times 
 
'Rich, thought-stirring and deeply engaging' John Gray, New Statesman 
 
'Gripping, enthralling, a great read ... a fragrant stew of history, literature and travel spiced with digression, detective work and dabs of humour' Sarah Wheeler, Observer

If you are someone, or know someone, who is romanced by stamps, or maps, or names, or journeys, or plaques - someone whose head is always popping up from the papers or a Radio 4 documentary with the words "did you know?" then I recommend this book to you. I loved it. It deserves a shelf of its own

A rich, thought-stirring and deeply engaging blend of travelogue, memoir and historical investigation

A performance that resists easy compartmentalisation ... This is clever and informative entertainment.

Norman Davies was for many years a professor at the School of Slavonic and East European Studies, London University. He is the author of the acclaimed Vanished Kingdoms and the number one bestseller Europe: A History. His previous books, which include Rising '44, The Isles: A History and God's Playground: A History of Poland, have been translated worldwide. He has researched at universities from Harvard to Hokkaido, and is a Fellow of the British Academy, an Honorary Fellow of St Antony's College, Oxford, and a visiting scholar at Pembroke College, Cambridge.

After decades of writing about European history, Norman Davies embarked upon an extended journey that took him round the world. He aimed to test his powers of observation, but equally to encounter history in a new way. Beneath Another Sky is partly a historian's travelogue, partly a highly engaging exploration of events and personalities that have fashioned today's world. 
 
Davies's circumnavigation takes him to Baku, the Emirates, India, Malaysia, Mauritius, Tasmania, Tahiti, Texas, Madeira and many places in between. At every stop, he not only describes the current scene but also excavates the layers of accumulated experience that underpin the present. He tramps round ancient temples, delves into the fate of indigenous peoples, uncovers the Nazi origins of Frankfurt airport and lectures on imperialism in a desert oasis. 'Everything has its history', he writes, 'including the history of finding one's way or of getting lost.' As always, Norman Davies watches the historical horizon as well as what is close at hand, and brilliantly complicates our view of the past.

Europe East and West

Norman Davies C. M. G., F. B. A. is Professor Emeritus of the University of London, a Supernumerary Fellow of Wolfson College, Oxford, and the author of several books on Polish and European history, including God's Playground, White Eagle, Red Star, The Isles, Europe, and Microcosm.

Collected here for the first time are some of the numerous essays and lectures by Norman Davies, author of the bestselling and critically acclaimed Europe, The Isles and Rising '44. Spanning more than fifteen years of his remarkable career, this highly accessible collection addresses many of the issues that continue to dominate the political and cultural climate of Europe today. 
 
From the classical origins of the idea of Europe to the division between East and West during the Cold War; from the Jewish and Islamic strands in European history to the expansion of Europe to other continents; from the misunderstood Allied victory in 1945 to Britain's place in Europe; from reflections on the use and abuse of history to personal recollections on learning languages - this companion volume to the bestselling Europe looks at European history from a variety of unusual and entertaining angles in an equally stimulating and accessible way.

A History

Europe

Norman Davies' seminal biography of a whole continent; 'it brims with learning, crackles with common sense, coruscates with wit and abounds in good judgement' - Felipe Fernandez-Armesto, Sunday Times

Any European or world citizen should read this… History that illuminates the present day

Books of real quality and importance are rare. Norman Davies's history of Europe is one of them. It is a brilliant achievement, written with intelligence, lucidity and a breathtaking width of knowledge... This is a book everyone should read

A noble monument of scholarship, and all the more noble because it is so full of surprise and feeling... There are superb assessments of vastly daunting subjects

Monumental, authoritative... A book for enquiring minds of all ages, it will answer hundreds of enquires and provoke thousands more

No history of Europe in the English language has been so even-handed in its treatment of east and west... Strong characterisation, vivid detail, trenchant opinions, cogent anaylsis all make this tremendous reading

Norman Davies C. M. G., F. B. A. is Professor Emeritus of the University of London, a Supernumerary Fellow of Wolfson College, Oxford, and the author of several books on Polish and European history, including God's Playground, White Eagle, Red Star, The Isles, Microcosm and Europe: East and West.

Europe – and the question of whether to stay in or leave – has dominated British politics for the last three years. Yet how much do you really know about the Continent? 
 
From the Ice Age to the Cold War, from Reykjavik to the Volga, from Minos to Margaret Thatcher, Norman Davies tells the entire story of Europe in a single volume. Discover the most ambitious history of the continent ever undertaken. 
 
‘Any European or world citizen should read this… History that illuminates the present day’ Big Issue

The History of Half-Forgotten Europe

Vanished Kingdoms

From Norman Davies, the acclaimed author of Europe: A History, comes the magical history of Europe's lost realms, selected as a Book of the Year by the Sunday Times, Daily Telegraph, New Statesman, Independent, Guardian and Financial Times. 
 
Europe's history is littered with kingdoms, duchies, empires and republics which have now disappeared but which were once fixtures on the map of their age. What happened to the once-great Mediterranean 'Empire of Aragon'? Where did the half-forgotten kingdoms of Burgundy go? Which current nations will one day become a distant memory too? This original and enthralling book peers through the cracks of history to discover the stories of lost realms across the centuries. 
 
'Dazzling, provocative and brilliant' Dominic Sandbrook, Sunday Times, Books of the Year 
 
 'A luminous account ... there are few better ways of understanding the multilayered splendours and horrors of Europe's past than through the pages of this wise, humane and unfailingly engaging book' John Adamson, Sunday Telegraph 
 
'Vanished Kingdoms is great history and also great art. It is written with verve, passion and profound empathy' David Marquand, New Statesman, Books of the Year 
 
'A magnificent achievement. Brocaded with scholarship, the book is unlikely ever to be equalled' Ian Thomson, Independent

The Polish-Soviet War 1919-20

White Eagle, Red Star

'Norman Davies's book is a permanent contribution to historical knowledge and international understanding.' A. J. P. Taylor

Norman Davies C. M. G., F. B. A. is a Professor Emeritus of the University of London, a Supernumerary Fellow of Wolfson College, Oxford, and the author of several books on Polish and European history, including God's Playground, Europe and The Isles.

Surprisingly little known, the Polish-Soviet War of 1919-20 was to change the course of twentieth-century history. 
 
In White Eagle, Red Star, Norman Davies gives a full account of the War, with its dramatic climax in August 1920 when the Red Army - sure of victory and pledged to carry the Revolution across Europe to 'water our horses on the Rhine' - was crushed by a devastating Polish attack. Since known as the 'miracle on the Vistula', it remains one of the most decisive battles of the Western world. 
 
Drawing on both Polish and Russian sources, Norman Davies illustrates the narrative with documentary material which hitherto has not been readily available and shows how the War was far more an 'episode' in East European affairs, but largely determined the course of European history for the next twenty years or more.

A Portrait of a Central European City

Microcosm

'A fascinating story' Antony Beevor, Spectator

This big, lucidly written and fact-filled book admirably achieves its purpose... Anyone who enjoyed Norman Davies's...The Isles will recognise the same qualities in this book: a gift for broad exposition, a marvellous eye for quirky but revelatory details, and, above all, a willingness to question the categories of traditional history, wherever they may come from.

Absorbing...clear...and persuasive...as even-handed, erudite and enlightening as history can be.

Microcosm tells the story of the city across the centuries. While not neglecting ethnic hatred and folly, the book is a hymn to diversity and cultural achievement.

The city is fortunate to have found such chroniclers as Davies and Roger Moorhouse.

Norman Davies C. M. G., F. B. A. is a Professor Emeritus of the University of London, a Supernumerary Fellow of Wolfson College, Oxford, and the author of several books on Polish and European history, including God's Playground, Europe and The Isles. 
 
Roger Moorhouse, who is a Germanist and historian, was chief researcher on Davies's previous books. Since Microcosm he has published two solo books: Killing Hitler and, most recently, Berlin at War. He is a regular contributor to the BBC History Magazine and History Today, a book reviewer for the Independent on Sunday, and an occasional commentator on television and radio

The story of Central Europe is anything but simple. As the region located between East and West, it has always been endowed with a rich variety of migrants, and has repeatedly been the scene of nomadic invasions, mixed settlements and military conquests. In order to present a portrait of Central Europe, Norman Davies and Roger Moorhouse have made a case study of one of its most colourful cities, the former German Breslau, which became the Polish Wroclaw after the Second World War. 
 
The traditional capital of the province of Silesia rose to prominence a thousand years ago as a trading centre and bishopric in Piast Poland. It became the second city of the kingdom of Bohemia, a major municipality of the Habsburg lands, and then a Residenzstadt of the kingdom of Prussia. The third largest city of nineteenth-century Germany, its population reached one million before the bitter siege by the Soviet Army in 1945 wrought almost total destruction. Since then Wroclaw has risen from the ruins of war and is once again a thriving regional centre. 
 
The history of Silesia's main city is more than a fascinating tale in its own right. It embodies all the experiences which have made Central Europe what it is - a rich mixture of nationalities and cultures; the scene of German settlement and of the reflux of the Slavs; a Jewish presence of exceptional distinction; a turbulent succession of imperial rulers; and the shattering exposure to both Nazis and Stalinists. In short, it is a Central European microcosm.

Norman Davies

Not Just a British Monarch

George II, King of Great Britain and Ireland and Elector of Hanover, came to Britain for the first time when he was thirty-one. He had a terrible relationship with his father, George I, which was later paralleled by his relationship to his own son. He was short-tempered and uncultivated, but in his twenty-three-year reign he presided over a great flourishing in his adoptive country - economic, military and cultural - all described with characteristic wit and elegance by Norman Davies. (George II so admired the Hallelujah chorus in Handel's Messiah that he stood while it was being performed - as modern audiences still do.) Much of his attention remained in Hanover and on continental politics, as a result of which he was the last British monarch to lead his troops into battle, at Dettingen in 1744.

Norman Davies

Books by Norman Davies

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