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4th out of 126 books
—
27 voters
God's Playground: A History of Poland, Vol. 1: The Origins to 1795
This new edition of Norman Davies's classic study of the history of Poland has been revised and fully updated with two new chapters to bring the story to the end of the twentieth century. The writing of Polish history, like Poland itself, has frequently fallen prey to interested parties. Professor Norman Davies adopts a sceptical stance towards all existing interpretations...more
Paperback, 570 pages
Published
September 1st 2005
by Oxford University Press
(first published 1982)
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Sep 15, 2011
Jan Hidders
added it
Norman Davies is an outstanding historian who is one of the world's leading experts in Polish history, and the book demonstrates this. It contains a wealth of detail that paints the daily life in historic times, but also analyses long-term developments within the Polish nation as well as in international politics, of which Poland has so often and so dramatically been the victim. This is simply the best and most comprehensive book on Polish history written by a non-Pole.
There were however also a...more
There were however also a...more
I wanted to rate this higher ... Davies produced a masterful study of Poland's pre-partition history, but ... it may be the densest tome I've ever picked up. Imagine a book with a full chapter devoted to the Vistula grain trade!
Yet I stuck with it, and read every last page, even thought the going was slow. Davies is a serious scholar who has dug into primary source material to produce a thorough, masterful study of Poland, and reading it gives one a sense of the polish national mindset.
Yet I stuck with it, and read every last page, even thought the going was slow. Davies is a serious scholar who has dug into primary source material to produce a thorough, masterful study of Poland, and reading it gives one a sense of the polish national mindset.
Get his book and its Vol 2 as well. Considered definitive if you want to understand Poland and its history. I agree.
An incredible book, even if I can't remember ever taking so long to finish one. Extremely dense with information; there's more than a person could ever hope to retain to memory here--fact after fact. What really makes this book stand out in my mind though is that Davies makes it all come together. I may not remember many of the dates and details, but I feel like I have a general understanding of Polish history that I never obtained from any other text on the subject. Davies also doesn't shy away...more
Both volumes of `God's Playground` with `White Eagle, Red Star` are must reads.
warmly recommended to me by a number of people but a surprisingly dull read.
May 11, 2013
Kim
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May 05, 2013
Lila
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5 of 5 stars
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review of another edition
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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
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