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Europe: A History

4.18 of 5 stars 4.18 · rating details · 1,247 ratings · 85 reviews

"Europe" is a magisterial work, sweeping in its analysis, illuminating in its insights and erudite in its scholarship.""Europe" brims with learning, crackles with common sense, coruscates with wit and abounds in good judgement."

"A master of broad-brushstroke analysis, Davies navigates through the larger historical currents with the detail necessary to a well-written engagi...more

Paperback, 1392 pages

Published January 20th 1998 by Harper Perennial (first published January 1st 1994)

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Jan 03, 2009 Pete Sikora rated it 3 of 5 stars Recommends it for: someone trying to write a history of Europe

Davies specializes in Polish history and WWII, but took on a continent-sized task. The result is a haphazardly organized mish-mash that loses its way just as its subject emerges as a concept in the 17th and 18th centuries.

We get a lot of Eastern European history, at the expense of understanding other nations. My Polish background makes that fine by me. However, by writing too many books, historians run a danger: the need to recycle material. "Europe" is proof.

At 1136 pages plus loads of append...more Davies specializes in Polish history and WWII, but took on a continent-sized task. The result is a haphazardly organized mish-mash that loses its way just as its subject emerges as a concept in the 17th and 18th centuries.

We get a lot of Eastern European history, at the expense of understanding other nations. My Polish background makes that fine by me. However, by writing too many books, historians run a danger: the need to recycle material. "Europe" is proof.

At 1136 pages plus loads of appendixes, it's a massive tome. It would have been nice to see more modern history - as usual for sweeping histories, the last 50 years are covered in the last 50 pages.

"Europe", after all, is a modern phenomenon. There was no "Europe" at all in ancient times - or the middle ages either. Heck, they didn't even have the shape of the continent mapped. Not to mention that it's barely even a real continent anyway.

On some level, therefore, the book is untrue to its title. It's really a history of the geographic area we now know as Europe. That's a quibble tho - I hate those dang : titles anyway, so who am I to complain. Still, it should have been more focused on the modern world.

On the other hand, it's a good stab at a difficult (impossible?)
synthesis. If Davies were a better writer, it'd be really solid a 4. I also suspect that he doesn't really know what he's talking about vis a vis anything other than Eastern Europe. So he can't quite pull it off.

3 side points:
1. the book was written at the height of PC academia. Davies is a tad defensive, albeit understandably.
2. the short breakout segments don't work - they're not compelling enough and as a result are distracting of the narrative, not illuminating. Just like, say, these 2 points stuck into the middle of this review.
3. he makes some attempts to comment on the convergence of communist and fascist ideology. Should have stuck to the history, and avoided the philosophy, because it's a superficial attempt and serves the reader poorly. We get that they both were bad - real bad. No need to try to prove they're basically the same thing, when the governing systems were radically different.

But again, tough subject, and I kept reading. There's real merit to taking on the topic. A little grading on the curve is merited. Kudos to Davies for making the attempt. 3 stars.

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Sep 15, 2011 Jan Hidders rated it 5 of 5 stars

A very big read indeed, but worth every minute you spend on it. The author makes a big point of treating the history of the whole of Europe, not just the Western part, and I agree with the author that such a treatment has been long overdue. The book is great as an overview work but can also be used to fill in some of the gaps in your historical knowledge, especially about Eastern Europe, since it also goes into some detail. However, it is not an introductory work and often assumes that you alrea...more

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Dec 20, 2009 Andy rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: history

A great book. A comprehensive overview of the history of Europe from prehistory to c.1990. The book focuses on the whole continent rather than the more familiar and more 'important' locations that generally get the attention. Each chapter of the book covers a particular epoch in European history and is given a title (I think all in Latin) which the author thinks sums up the period in question. Within each chapter are a series of sidebars separate to the main text relating to a particular point o...more

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Feb 17, 2013 Betty Ho rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: history

It took me 2 months to struggle through the first half of the book with numerous side readings/ wiki/ movies (To make sure I've got a clear picture, I even created a timeline with 300 events from pre-history to reformation and also hundreds of dots on my Google map).

Once all the puzzles came together, I can breeze through the remaining 50% with great satisfaction.

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Oct 28, 2010 carl theaker rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: history

A quite fascinating entirely readable intro to European history.
At over 1200 pages it's quite a tome, but it does cover a lot of
ground, pre-history to 1992, nomadic-tribes to the end of the
Cold War.

Along with plenty of maps, charts, and a few sections of photos,
there are 1 page Capsules sprinkled throughout, which delve into a
particular subject a little deeper.

Davies is a scholar on Poland, so if you find the section on
that area a little long, you've never learned so much about
Lithuania in yo...more

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Dec 01, 2012 Darran Mclaughlin rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: history

An excellent general history of Europe from the earliest stirrings in Minoa prior to the ancient Greeks to the 1990's, which is an amazing achievement over 1400 pages. It is a pretty brisk overview by necessity, intertwining the main narrative with several self-contained capsules which focus upon a variety of points of interest. As it is such a broad overview the reader will have to research anything that interests them particularly in greater depth by reading more specialized books. Two element...more

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Dec 11, 2012 Matt Leininger rated it 4 of 5 stars

Davies does an incredible job of whittling the history of Europe, from prehistoric times through the cold war, down to a manageable 1100 pages of text with ample supplemental material. Davies spends considerable time on the science of history itself, addressing the subjectivity of historians and the tendencies they displayed in different eras. For example, the overwhelming inclination of western historians to overweight the importance of Britain in European history or the absence of critical ana...more

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Mar 24, 2008 People say my name should be Jeff rated it 5 of 5 stars

A very complete history of Europe. I really enjoy the fact that the author does not exclude parts of Europe that are not traditionally "Europe," like Ukraine and Turkey.

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Dec 10, 2011 Carter rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

He just couldn't do it. The subject is too large.

There is a story to tell here. Davies wrote the book in the mid-nineties, when the continent was experiencing an unprecedented coming together. This modern development serves to underscore the truth that European countries are indeed interconnected, their histories bound together in many interesting and fascinating ways. Many, many, many ways. Too many ways. And that's the problem.

You would look at this book on the library shelf and think, he coul...more

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Apr 18, 2007 Pierce rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: history

The sine qua non reference for European history. Particularly valuable for covering more than France, Germany, Italy, and Britain.

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Jun 18, 2012 Lyn Elliott rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: history

I have been reading this for over a year, and will probably go on reading it for the rest of my life. For anyone wanting to understand the patterns of Europe, as opposed to one or two countries, this is THE book. Davies discusses the concept of 'Europe' as a starting point - in itself a fascinating exercise. His Europe includes the Slavic countries and the Balkans. As he speaks and reads at 9 languages, including several Slavic languages, he is able to access sources that most scholars who write...more

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Dec 04, 2008 Hilary rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Very thorough, but hard to get through. I compared the JM Roberts History of Europe with the Norman Davies Europe: A History(this one), and although the Davies was more enjoyable overall due to his "capsules" as he calls them, of random contemporaneous information, the style was too messy to get through and the book ended up being HUGE because of all the unncessary information. I recommend the Roberts over the Davies simply due to the accessibility of the information; I couldn't find a capsule i...more

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Aug 03, 2012 John H.D. Lucy rated it 4 of 5 stars

Unless you know a whole lot about Europe already, this is a great book to read for the curious lay person and intellectual or for the student. It's long, clearly, but very much worth it as a book to read on the side. I'm a firm believer that histories should neither be told as stories or as simply a collection of facts, but something in between: Davies does it to near perfection. The writing is smooth and easily understandable for all. And, to his great credit, Davies tries hard at writing the h...more Unless you know a whole lot about Europe already, this is a great book to read for the curious lay person and intellectual or for the student. It's long, clearly, but very much worth it as a book to read on the side. I'm a firm believer that histories should neither be told as stories or as simply a collection of facts, but something in between: Davies does it to near perfection. The writing is smooth and easily understandable for all. And, to his great credit, Davies tries hard at writing the history without cultural biases or scholarly biases of any sort--obviously this is nearly impossible to do and Davies admits as much in his introduction, which is a great piece of writing in its own right. For people who "don't like" or "don't care" about history, the introduction alone is worth reading. Yet Davies does not fall into the modern trip, either, of exhibiting how evil the "good" guys actually were: the good guys are shown as good and bad, and the bad guys are shown as bad and good--the facts are given the most weight and various forms of historical interpretation are offered, though Davies does always give his own conclusions as well. The end result is that a reader from any country, the U.S. included, can feel proud and embarrassed of their country's exploits with a mostly balanced reading of history.

In 1200 pages Davies does an excellent job of compacting the whole of Europe's history, with a strong emphasis on more modern history. All eras are covered but the closer to today the more attention Davies gives. For the lay person, perhaps the best trait of the history are the many capsules throughout that do not and would not fit into the historical narrative but cite interesting tidbits of historical knowledge, particularly cultural knowledge: for instance, ever wonder how vampire legends began? Like the introduction, the capsules are a good means for people who claim to not care about or like history to understand how fun history can be by learning from where certain cultural phenomenons come.

Smaller histories are likely to accrue the criticism of having left out material while longer histories are often considered unreadable, and still receive the criticism of leaving out material. While all historians are susceptible to bias by inclusion or exclusion, it would be hard for anyone but a specialist scholar to point out where Davies does not include relevant material. As someone with a fairly good knowledge of European history going into the reading of this book, it's easy to say that Davies includes all the major and minor points of history and then some. The only problem is that Davies sometimes includes pieces of information by merely referencing it, as if he expects the reader to already know what he's talking about. Similarly, Davies is, to his credit, clearly attempting to write a history of Europe for Europeans, and Americans, and not for only one language group, though he is writing in English. What this means is that he often quotes poetry and other things in the native language, which is great, but then at times does not translate, which is not great, either expecting the reader to know French, Russian, German, and Italian particularly, or not caring at all about the reader. In the same vein Davies uses the actual spelling of historical figures' names rather than any accepted Anglicized versions of the names and rarely explains. This is particularly an issue at the beginning of the history with the Romans and Greeks, but continues to be an issue all the way through to approximately the Renaissance portion of the history. Most of the time the reader will figure it out--it would be hard to mistake Julius Caesar, given how much space he receives and that his story should be fairly recognizable for anyone--sometimes a less knowledgeable reader will come across a previously unknown figure and then be taught a spelling that many others wouldn't immediately recognize.

All in all, I highly recommend this history. At the very least, read the introduction, the capsules, and the last two or three chapters. (less)

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Apr 18, 2012 Rob rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: history, all-time-favourites, kindle

I read this on a Kindle which in terms of sheer logistics is the best way to read a 1392 page book. A "book" book of this size is just too uncomfortable to read in any other way. The Kindle came into its own especially with its notes and highlights features.

1392 pages, too little to cover 3 or 4,000 years of complex history of a continent? 1392 pages, too many pages to not be bored or overwhelmed with information?

Davies did this by not writing a conventional history. By conventional I mean not...more I read this on a Kindle which in terms of sheer logistics is the best way to read a 1392 page book. A "book" book of this size is just too uncomfortable to read in any other way. The Kindle came into its own especially with its notes and highlights features.

1392 pages, too little to cover 3 or 4,000 years of complex history of a continent? 1392 pages, too many pages to not be bored or overwhelmed with information?

Davies did this by not writing a conventional history. By conventional I mean not by chronology alone. He certainly starts at the start with neolithic peoples but he also starts by questioning what is Europe? He does a far bit of historiography throughout questioning assumptions and reviewing what the profession thinks about certain issues and controversies. For instance he looks at the basis of Classical Greek civilization, reviewing the "Black Athena" thesis (and dismissing it).

What Davies does is write stories, some very opinionated. He writes stories about important aspects of European history. For instance when writing about the Roman class system he mentions slavery and goes off on a tangent about the history of slavery in Europe and then he comes back to Rome.

There is the problem of what sort of reader would like this book. If you're a history buff why reread all the stuff you have read before and if you aren't a history buff why pick up a nearly 1400 page history book in the first place. The simple answer is gaps and connections. Everyone has a gap in their knowledge and Davies sees connections where most don't.

Davies is an Eastern European specialist so he brings that insight into the book. He sees the interconnections between Western and Eastern Europe and how they formed. He gives space and credit to Byzantium and Orthodox Christianity. I knew nothing of Byzantium until I was about 15. I suspect most English speaking /Catholic/Protestant people are the same. Before this book I knew nothing of the history of Poland. Does the average person know why Poland had a large Jewish population? Well the reason is that when Europe was ripping itself to pieces over religion in the 16th and 17th Poland had a conscious policy of religious freedom and toleration so the Jews of Europe came and settled in a land that did not persecute them. It was only in the 19th Century with Poland split and the pressure of Czarist Orthodoxy that the idea of a real Pole being a Catholic came into play.

I would highly recommend this book both for the specialist and the lay reader. I can see one potential untapped market with the rise of China and India. It is quirky in style and opinionated but it is well written.

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Oct 20, 2011 Reva rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2011, format-kindle, paid-for, era-modern

In a fit of ambition five months ago at the beach in Casablanca, I downloaded and started Norman Davies’ epic Europe: A History. I’m not sure I’ve ever been quite so proud to click that “I’m Finished” button on my GoodReads update page. On my Kindle, the page count reads upwards of sixteen hundred pages. However, with the opening chapter an easily digestible introduction to the physical and prehistoric beginnings of the cultures that came to be called collectively European, I felt like the book...more In a fit of ambition five months ago at the beach in Casablanca, I downloaded and started Norman Davies’ epic Europe: A History. I’m not sure I’ve ever been quite so proud to click that “I’m Finished” button on my GoodReads update page. On my Kindle, the page count reads upwards of sixteen hundred pages. However, with the opening chapter an easily digestible introduction to the physical and prehistoric beginnings of the cultures that came to be called collectively European, I felt like the book would fly by as quickly as a book with chapters over a hundred pages could. I was wrong. That first chapter is structured, with headings and concise sections of information. Very early on, Davies throws in the trivia blurbs – while the Kindle couldn’t handle the formatting of these sections with much ease, I greatly enjoyed not only the liveliness that these somewhat informal additions of information added, but also the context they provided. Or, rather, the contexts in which they were provided – that is, I enjoyed seeing those bracketed titles over and over again throughout different epics of the book. (For better or for worse, the one that springs to mind first is the “Condom” one – it comes up in the middle ages, later on in the seventeenth or eighteenth century, and then again in the twentieth century.) Not all of them reappear throughout the ages, but the ones that do provide a nice line of progress (or anti-progress, as the case may be) over the centuries. Apart from that first chapter and the numerous brief interruptions that keep it ever so mildly entertaining, the whole middle section turns to mush. He rushes through plenty of the more interesting parts of the Greek and Roman empires (including the civil war) only to harp on for what feels like forever about the Holy Roman Empire. Commendably, he includes much detail about the countries of Eastern Europe. Regrettably, I missed whatever initial introduction there may have been and spent most of the middle of the book confused and bored. I struggled to find the storyline. I only followed the timeline of the Eastern Europe toward the last couple chapters, and at that point, I’m fairly sure it was just excitement about having only a handful (uh, relative term) of pages left. I did enjoy the last two chapters, though – even when he glossed over major events like the tearing down of the Berlin Wall in half a sentence. By the end, I kind of felt like I needed to reread the whole middle part (not any time soon, mind you) because I had grasped the cultures and the personalities in those chapters even with a very hazy background. Davies’ Europe: A History reviewed much of the information I’d learned years ago in AP World History back in high school in almost an equally boring fashion, but the interjectory plates added a bit more interest to a painfully unstructured book.(less)

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Sep 11, 2010 Chris Abel rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: history, partially-read

For several years, history has been the primary focus of what I read. Having not had a formal course in history since high school, I decided to read this book in order to build a general base of knowledge which can inform my future book choices.

Given the length of the book, and the time commitment that it will likely require to complete, I've decided to split it into sections, and then temporarily put the book aside after reading each section.

Over the past month (early Aug. - early Sept. 2010),...more

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Aug 16, 2010 Avrelia rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: history, non-fiction, painful-angst

It is a rather big book, more than a thousand pages about – obviously – the European history. It took me more than a year to finish, and not only because it is so long and has a very specialized lexicon, but because during the reading I had a strong urge to throw this book at the wall, and had to put it away and cool off a little bit.

Do not mistake me: I liked this book. The author undertakes an impossible task: to write about the history of the part of the world we call Europe from the first p...more

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Mar 15, 2013 James Gaffney rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Outstanding. This tour de force covers European history from the Ice Age to the end of the Cold War, while also touches on Europe's influence in the wider world, while also asking questions about the nature of Europe itself. It is written in a very readable style, with no shortage of humour thrown in. It is extremely thorough - even my various homes through the years of Limerick, Besancon and Minas Gerais get mentions. Even though Davies finished writing it in 1992, he asks some pertinent questi...more

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Aug 21, 2011 Inkognit Witoslawski Robert rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

To dopiero cegła ...
muszę przyznać że lubię styl pisarski Davisa i chyba tylko dzięki jego umiejętności przedstawiania trudnych i skomplikowanych historii w sposób dość lekki i przejrzysty zawdzięczam to iż nawet po tysiącu i jeszcze czterech setkach stron nie czuję zmęczenia i wyczerpania a wręcz przeciwnie... a wiele faktów które do tej pory umykały memu biednemu staremu mózgowi, zdołały się jakoś w nim usadowić i to bez żadnego bólu...

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Aug 05, 2012 Travis rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: general-history

Given how utterly jam-packed with information this book is, and how it manages to hold a single all-encompassing narrative through 1200 pages of text while including scores of interesting asides, it is difficult to justify giving this book less than 5 stars. The amount of research that went into this work must have been truly astronomical, and the fact that Davies was able to condense it all into one narrative history stretching, as the cover says, from the Ice Age to the Cold War and from the U...more

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Aug 31, 2010 Joel rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: owned

I wavered between 4 and 5 stars, because there are some parts -- mostly in the beginning -- that I forced myself to trudge through. But that was only because my knowledge of Europe outside of the usual stuff is relatively small, and I was just not able to process all the names and places thrown out. I'm taking into account that this book is an insane undertaking, and the fact that I was really into the book for around 800 of its 1136 pages is pretty damn impressive.

The little boxes of random as...more

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May 20, 2012 Penny rated it 5 of 5 stars

This is the second of Mr. Davies books I purchased and so its huge size didn't put me off. My previous experience taught me to expect engaging, populous writing, clear purpose, and the delightful 'little man' factor, stories Mr. Davies weaves throughout to bring his subject and the people to life.

I own three of his history books and intend to purchase several more.

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May 10, 2010 Old-Barbarossa rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I found my edition riddled with typos, specifically in the "capsules", with entire lines being missed or repeated at times.
Also, I know that as a general Hx it isn't going to go into too much in depth, but based on the Hx I am familiar with he really seems to simplify in some areas when he might as well just have a wee summary of them in a sentence or 2, or completely ignored them, for all the value his comments had. I know that if he had gone into loads of detail the book would have been huge,...more

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Jan 10, 2008 Chris rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I was turned off history at school, but over the years I've developed a keen interest in trying to understand how the world got to be the way it is today. So, despite its size, 'Europe' tempted me. Davies's prose is very readable: he's an academic, but his style communicates very well to the layman (I guess it works for the academic, as well, because footnotes, references and appendices are all there in abundance). A particular strenghth is that the book is sprinkled with anecdotes and asides th...more

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Jul 22, 2009 Synve rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: history

Interesting, comprehensive book. He does a good job of covering all of Europe´s history in one volume. However, I did notice some incorrect facts in the book (for instance about Scandinavia which I know best), and this probably means there are many more incorrect facts I didn´t notice. So I don´t recommend trusting the book 100%.

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Feb 17, 2009 Elijah Meeks rated it 5 of 5 stars

This is an amazing, magisterial text that I always find myself opening. Though Davies let's his anti-Soviet sentiment affect not only his modern interpretations and he ignores the Romanized and Hellenized culture of the Middle East, it's still the finest overview of classical Europe that I've ever read.

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May 24, 2013 Stinkyman rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Though an excellent book the fault lies in me when I turn off after reading an unpronounceable name the VII. The best parts are when the author makes philosophical comments on how it seems nothing changes. The focus on East Europe is also interesting. The vignettes are a real treat to lighten the heavy tome.

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May 14, 2009 Moominboy rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: my-ebooks, non-fiction, history, favorites

A thick history book comprising all Europe's history and yet you read it as a page-turner. What is noteworthy is that he gives equal attention to Western and Eastern Europe (a rare thing, for some reason). A brick-sized compendium of knowledge but it reads like a thriller.

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Sep 24, 2012 Marc L rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: history, europe, favorites

Extraordinary history of Europe. Brilliant, especially for its attention to eastern Europe, although written just after the opening of the Iron Curtain. The "lemma's" that accompany the chronological story are perfect complementaries, that give depth to the narrative.

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Jul 17, 2012 Garrett rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: history

As the title suggests, this is a sprawling one-volume history of Europe. Norman Davies tackles this monstrous subject in precisely the right manner. The introduction sets up what he desires to accomplish and does so by asking the most important question imaginable: What is 'Europe'? Covering the history of Europe from pre-history to 1991 and the fall of the Soviet Union, Davies explores the different ideas, events, inventions, discoveries, and people who helped to shape Europe and make it what i...more

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About Norman Davies

Professor Ivor Norman Richard Davies FBA, FRHistS is a leading English historian of Welsh descent, noted for his publications on the history of Europe, Poland, and the United Kingdom. From 1971, Davies taught Polish history at the School of Slavonic and East European Studies (SSEES) of the University of London, where he was professor from 1985 to 1996. Currently, he is Supernumary Fellow at Wolfso...more Professor Ivor Norman Richard Davies FBA, FRHistS is a leading English historian of Welsh descent, noted for his publications on the history of Europe, Poland, and the United Kingdom. From 1971, Davies taught Polish history at the School of Slavonic and East European Studies (SSEES) of the University of London, where he was professor from 1985 to 1996. Currently, he is Supernumary Fellow at Wolfson College, Oxford. Throughout his career, Davies has lectured in many countries, including the United States, Canada, Australia, Japan, China, Poland, and in most of the rest of Europe as well.

The work which established Davies' reputation in the English-speaking world was God's Playground (1981), a comprehensive overview of Polish history. In Poland, the book was published officially only after the fall of communism. In 2000, Davies' Polish publishers Znak published a collection of his essays and articles under the title Smok wawelski nad Tamizą ("The Wawel Dragon on the Thames"). It is not available in English.

In 1984, Davies published Heart of Europe, a briefer history of Poland. Interestingly, the chapters are arranged in reverse chronological order. In the 1990s, Davies published Europe: A History (1996) and The Isles: A History (1999), about Europe and the islands of Great Britain and Ireland, respectively. Each book is a narrative interlarded with numerous sidepanel discussions of microtopics. In 2002, at the suggestion of the city's mayor, Bogdan Zdrojewski, Davies and his former research assistant, Roger Moorhouse, co-wrote a history of Wrocław / Breslau, a Silesian city. Titled Microcosm: Portrait of a Central European City, the book was published simultaneously in English, Polish, German and Czech. Davies also writes essays and articles for the mass media. Among others, he has worked for the BBC as well as British and American magazines and newspapers, such as The Times, The New York Review of Books and The Independent. In Poland, his articles appeared in the liberal Catholic weekly Tygodnik Powszechny. Davies' book Rising '44. The Battle for Warsaw describes the Warsaw Uprising. It was followed by Europe at War 1939-1945: No Simple Victory (2006). In 2008 Davies participated in the documentary film "The Soviet Story"

Some historians, most vocally Lucy Dawidowicz and Abraham Brumberg, object to Davies' historical treatment of the Holocaust in Nazi-occupied Poland. They accuse him of minimizing historic antisemitism, and of promoting a view that accounts of the Holocaust in international historiography largely overlook the suffering of non-Jewish Poles. Davies’s supporters contend that he gives due attention to the genocide and war crimes perpetrated by both Hitler and Stalin on Polish Jews and non-Jews. Davies himself argues that "Holocaust scholars need have no fears that rational comparisons might threaten that uniqueness. Quite the opposite." and that "...one needs to re-construct mentally the fuller picture in order to comprehend the true enormity of Poland’s wartime cataclysm, and then to say with absolute conviction ‘Never Again’." In 1986, Dawidowicz’s criticism of Davies’ historical treatment of the Holocaust was cited as a factor in a controversy at Stanford University in which Davies was denied a tenured faculty position for alleged "scientific flaws". Davies sued the university for breach of contract and defamation of character, but in 1989 the court ruled that it did not have jurisdiction in an academic matter.

Davies holds a number of honorary titles and memberships, including honorary doctorates from the universities of the Jagiellonian University (since 2003), Lublin, Gdańsk and Warsaw (since 2007), memberships in the Polish Academy of Learning (PAU) and the Academia Scientiarum et Artium Europaea, and fellowships of the British Academy and the Royal Historical Society. Davies received an honorary DLitt degree from his alma mater the University of Sussex. Davies is also an honorary(less)

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Books by Norman Davies

Vanished Kingdoms: The History of Half-Forgotten Europe

No Simple Victory: World War II in Europe, 1939-1945

God's Playground: A History of Poland, Vol. 1: The Origins to 1795

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BBCode	[url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40631.Europe?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book][img]http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1348232983l/40631.jpg[/img][/url] [url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40631.Europe?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book]Europe: A History by Norman Davies[/url]

Europe: A History

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