Vanished Kingdoms: The History of Half-Forgotten Europe

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Vanished Kingdoms: The History of Half-Forgotten Europe

3.75 of 5 stars 3.75 · rating details · 377 ratings · 81 reviews

'The past is a foreign country' has become a truism, yet we often forget that the past is different from the present in many unfamiliar ways, and historical memory is extraordinarily imperfect. We habitually think of the European past as the history of countries which exist today - France, Germany, Britain, Russia and so on - but often this actually obstructs our view of t...more

Hardcover, 789 pages

Published September 1st 2011 by Allen Lane (first published October 1st 2009)

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Jul 16, 2012 Adam Higgitt rated it 1 of 5 stars

It is slightly fraudulent to mark this book as read, but given that there is no option to mark as "skipped some chapters after persisting far longer than the material justifies" this will have to do.

I cannot recall the last time I didn't read a book all the way through, even a long one like this. Alas, the addition of some truly objectionable showing off has pushed me over the edge. There is no doubt that Professor Davies has researched all his subjects meticulously. But do we really need to be...more

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May 26, 2012 David Nichols rated it 3 of 5 stars

A rather old-fashioned collection of essays on defunct European monarchies, focusing on the military conquests and marital alliances of those kingdoms' ruling families. Davies pads the narrative with block quotes, genealogical charts, and song lyrics, and pauses periodically to indulge in interpretive quarrels that are likely to bore most readers (unless they are deeply interested in how many political entities bore the name 'Burgundy'). Still, there are a few interesting chapters here on the A...more

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Dec 30, 2012 Chantal E. rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: books-didn-t-like-didn-t-finish

The subject matter is extremely interesting. It seemed like the perfect book for me. I was so excited when I finally got to read it. But alas, it was so dry! The first chapter was good actually, though now I forget which country it was about.... I know it was some small one that was in current day France... Anyway, the second chapter, on Alt Clut/Strathclyde, was deadly. It was extremely dry and the long lists of names put the Bible to shame. The author is from the UK and you could tell there wa...more

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Dec 28, 2012 Katherine rated it 5 of 5 stars

For anyone aspiring to an education in European history Norman Davies book is a "must read." The crannies of history that have remained obscure are made painstakingly clear, from the Visigoths to the Kingdom of Poland and its Grand Duchy of Lithuania.

Not only is this book essential for an understanding of Europe's chaotic history, but it clarifies, through the author's own travel experiences, what's happening now and why. Davies' approach is unique in my experience in his vivid accounts of the...more

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Oct 10, 2012 Loring Wirbel rated it 4 of 5 stars

Readers familiar with Davies' two historical monster-works of the 1990s, 'Europe: A History' and 'The Isles,' recognize that Davies combines a desire to be comprehensive on a broad scope with a unique style of information presentation that is exciting and quite unlike most historians. At the same time, he is dismissive of over-specialization in historical studies and of post-modernist concerns with "narrative," critiques that I share with Davies. But the very nature of this book suggested it wo...more Readers familiar with Davies' two historical monster-works of the 1990s, 'Europe: A History' and 'The Isles,' recognize that Davies combines a desire to be comprehensive on a broad scope with a unique style of information presentation that is exciting and quite unlike most historians. At the same time, he is dismissive of over-specialization in historical studies and of post-modernist concerns with "narrative," critiques that I share with Davies. But the very nature of this book suggested it would be an informal chance for stretching out, a bit of improvisational jazz over the European continent, compared to the structured symphonies of his two previous works. And that is pretty much what we are given. Where the two mega-works deserve instant five-star rankings, this one merits four stars due to its eclectic arrangement of material - but that doesn't distract from the fact that it is an utter joy to read.

In his introduction, Davies would have us believe that he wants to follow up popular analyses of failure such as 'Guns, Germs and Steel' and 'War and Peace and War' with a book that dissects reasons states disappear. At the end of the book he gives us categories like merger, implosion, and infant mortality as reasons for the death of states, but in reality, he's just taking us on an idiosyncratic vacation to some very interesting locales.

The structure of each section is a little confusing. He begins with a modern description of a very specific location that has a tenuous relation to the state being described, a tie so loose that occasionally it's confusing where Davies is going. This is followed by a long middle section providing a conventional history of the region, followed by a brief conclusion that talks about the modern implications of the state's disappearance. Parts 2 and 3 of each chapter seem worth retaining, but that first part often is difficult to decipher.

But you will be taken to interesting realms on this trip - the Kingdom of Strathclyde, centered on Glasgow but populated by older Britons (the "Old North") related to the Welsh; the Kingdom of Burgundy in all its convolutions; the Visigoth kingdom of Tolosa centered on the modern city of Toulouse. It's obvious we should know the name of Vouille as well as we know Tours, but what is not so obvious is why Davies chose some vanished kingdoms and not others. If we get Tolosa, why not Merovingian France, almost as little-known as the Visigoth realms? If Aragon, why not Navarre - or why not the Gothic kingdoms of south Spain that first fought off the Islamic invasions? If Etruria, why not other Napoleonic republics? If Estonia, why not other Baltic states?

The simple answer is that Davies is allowed to randomly pick and choose, and to keep a book like this less than a thousand pages, arbitrary choices must be made. And that is at once the book's strength and weakness. 'Vanished Kingdoms' is like listening to free jazz. You go with the improvisations chosen by the author, and you know you will end up in unexpected and fascinating places. But this is not a detailed list of all of Europe's vanished kingdoms - it's a collection of fascinating stories that may or may not leave us with lessons of larger truths in organizing coherent nation-states.

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Aug 16, 2012 Austin Burbridge rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: europe, places, power

On the whole, I liked the book; not, however, as much as I liked the idea of the book. It really does want an editor to look out for the reader. Although I like the conclusions to which the author eventually arrives, I would have been much happier reading, had he let me know where he was headed at the beginning of each chapter. The surprise-twist ending works for O. Henry, but O. Henry's stories were more compact than the chapters of this book. Neither a failure of history, nor of wit; but some...more

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Jan 28, 2013 Jason Goodwin rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: history

A book after my own heart. Vanished Kingdoms details the stories of several significant European polities which no longer exist, including the Kingdoms, Duchies and Counties of Burgundy, the Polish-Lithianian Commonwealth, and Saxe-Coburg. The biggest recent Boojum is, of course, the Soviet Union, which vanished overnight without anyone – least of all Gorbachev – intending it to do so; nor the hundreds of thousands of soldiers, strategists, politicians or secret policemen devoted to its preserva...more

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Oct 10, 2012 Pctrollbreath rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: history

This is an interesting, if flawed, alternative history of Europe from the perspective of it's lost kingdoms.

The book is presented as a series of nutshell histories of the nations involved. As you would expect from this author the chapters on East/Central Europe have more depth with some fine work on Prussia and Lithuania.

The rest of the book is a bit of a mixed bag. Chapters on The Kingdom of the Rock and Aragon stand out as well worth reading.

A big disappointment is the chapter on Burgundy. Thi...more

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Apr 27, 2012 Liviu rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: non-fiction, 2012_release_read, read_2012

While seemingly impressive and erudite, I was a little disappointed with this book for two reasons; the narrative is on the clunky side and i remember (maybe wrongly though) that I liked the narrative in Europe and The Isles and thought it flowed.

On the content side, the lesser known states have some interesting tidbits but i found the story of the ones I know about (Duchy of Lithuania, Byzantium or CCCP) on the sketchy "for Martians" side; Byzantium is truly ridiculous and I have no idea why it...more

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Dec 01, 2012 Simon Dobson rated it 4 of 5 stars

A wide-ranging ride through some of the lesser-known states of Europe. There's plenty of anecdote and detail here, and the book seeks to (and largely succeeds in) explaining the history of some areas that are often left out of the European story. The Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the origins of Prussia and Burgundy are all fascinating.

The inclusion of a chapter on Éire seems a little out of place. Ireland is hardly a "vanished" kingdom, and the history presented is almost exclusively 19-20th cent...more

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Dec 19, 2011 Robbie rated it 4 of 5 stars

All in all, Vanished Kingdoms is a good history, or rather, collection of histories. It serves the very useful purpose of highlighting those body politics of the past that often were once extremely influential and powerful but at some point succumbed to the sands of time. To that end, it effectively challenges our contemporary tendency to see the past through the prisms of currently existing states: the history of Europe is far more than the aggregate national histories of current European count...more

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Jan 18, 2013 Burnley Richmond rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: european-history

Although an admirer of Davies' writing I struggled with this one.

Each chapter covers the history of a nation that lived and died. Some are intriguing but Davies injects himself into the narrative too much for mine.

The (very) short history on Byzantium is a tirade against fellow historians. He makes frequent sledges at rival historians.

The second half of the book covers many ex-Polish influenced entities and each is an excuse to savage the various Russian regimes and talk up Polish history. Under...more

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Feb 27, 2012 Rob rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: wood2

When I was a child in the 1970's, the map of the Europe seemed immutable. Ongoing decolonialisation granted statehood to pre-existing territories of the major European powers, and new states had sprung forth from violent conflict in far-flung corners of the globe, but Europe's boundaries, fixed in the aftermath of the Second World War, were constant. Then came the collapse of the Soviet Union and the break-up of Yugoslavia and Czechoslovia. Europe's states suddenly became fragile entities, as ce...more When I was a child in the 1970's, the map of the Europe seemed immutable. Ongoing decolonialisation granted statehood to pre-existing territories of the major European powers, and new states had sprung forth from violent conflict in far-flung corners of the globe, but Europe's boundaries, fixed in the aftermath of the Second World War, were constant. Then came the collapse of the Soviet Union and the break-up of Yugoslavia and Czechoslovia. Europe's states suddenly became fragile entities, as centrifugal forces started to impinge on even long-established Western states like Spain, Italy and the United Kingdom. The old certainties had vanished, history had not ended.

Yet this is no new phenomenon - thirty years of post-war stability is the exception in European history, not the rule. The map of Europe has been like a kaleidoscope, borders shifting as the wheel of time turns. Yet when we analyse these patterns, so often our perspective is shaped through the prism of contemporary states, so when we look at Prussia, it is through the context of modern Germany, or Burgundy through that of modern France. What Norman Davies has done in this brilliantly conceived and executed book is to look at snapshots of European history from the perspective of those states which have failed to survive the test of time.

The result is a startling series of cameos.What is the relationship between medieval Aragon and modern Catalonia? How did a remote region of what is now Poland and Russia give its name to the State from which modern Germany sprang (and why does its name no longer exist)? Why are there two separate Galicias in Europe, and are they linked? (No, they aren't). Why did the mayfly state of Carpatho-Ukraine exist for just one day?

The fortunes of states ebb and flow. Who in the early 1980s could have envisaged that by 1991 the Soviet Union would have imploded? Yet its demise is no more surprising than that of medieval Byzantium, or of the mighty Dukedom of Burgundy. We are left with faint traces, palimpsests of what went before - Byzantine complexity, Prussian blue (which would have been Brandenburg Blue if it had been synthesised in Berlin five years earlier).

Fifteen vanished kingdoms are analysed, each in three parts. The first gives a contemporary context in the form of a short travelogue (necessary for some of the more obscure parts of Eastern Europe). Then the rise and fall of the state in historical terms is described, followed by the memory sites, the cultural traces of the vanished kingdoms which resonate to this day. We progress according to a rough chronology, and in the earlier chapters there is a slight tendency for the historical sections to resolve down to unfamiliar names of kings, places and battles, but the broader contexts largely offset this. By the time we come to more familiar historical territory (for me anyway) this is no longer an issue.

Davies attempts to analyse the reasons why kingdoms vanish. Some are absorbed or destroyed by bigger neighbours, some disintegrate from within. Others merge together to make a greater whole. Looking at the examples of Piedmont-Savoy, Aragon and the Soviet Union, he puts forward the case that Kingdoms which come together from distinct constituent parts have a greater tendency to split apart over time. Small nations such as Estonia can exist successfully under the umbrellas of Nato and the European Union, so he believes that the separatist forces acting on the United Kingdom will one day win through, forcing Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales down the path trodden early last century by Ireland. Whether you agree with this analysis or not, this compelling, beautifully written book is vital reading for all with an interest in European history or contemporary politics alike.

Taken from my blog http://roderick-random.blogspot.com/2...

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Apr 01, 2012 Helene Ryding rated it 4 of 5 stars

I think you shouldn't attempt to read this book in one go. Like most Norman Davies books, this is physically too heavy and your arms will get tired! Also some chapters are too long and some too short. Some chapters will be more interesting depending on where you come from and what period of history you already know about. I found the early
chapter on British history (Alt Clud) fascinating as I had never read anything about it before.

Each chapter is divided into three parts: the kingdom as it is...more

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Feb 06, 2012 Mieczyslaw Kasprzyk rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: history, non-fiction, european

The best histories are always slightly eccentric - and this one certainly is eccentric. Its range is great, both in time and space: ancient, modern and trans-European, it deals with "failed" or "vanished" states but in reality reminds us that everything is transient. Things only feel permanent and fixed when we stand in the centre.
I suppose what I like about this book is its serendipity - the fact that you can dive in virtually anywhere and find something interesting and informative. It has vari...more The best histories are always slightly eccentric - and this one certainly is eccentric. Its range is great, both in time and space: ancient, modern and trans-European, it deals with "failed" or "vanished" states but in reality reminds us that everything is transient. Things only feel permanent and fixed when we stand in the centre.
I suppose what I like about this book is its serendipity - the fact that you can dive in virtually anywhere and find something interesting and informative. It has variety because it is not the history of any one place but of many places and it is exotic because none of these "nations" (on the whole) exist any more. These could almost be fabled lands lost in the mists and dusts of ancient libraries.
One of the great weaknesses of many histories is the long lists of rulers and their offspring; who begat who (in our Judaeo-Christian culture we know where that failing first arose). As the son of a labourer and the grandson of a peasant I'm not really interested in the "true-blooded" lineage of these so-called lords and rulers yet, I suppose, it is a necessary evil for we are looking at the creation, growth and eventual decline of nations (and to be fair Davies does a lovely job of explaining this just at the moment one is thinking "lists" in a derogatory way). Davies actually compares these states to great corporations and famous brands, and their rulers to CEOs - a lovely analogy.
The chapter on Litva makes me feel like a refugee in some Tolkinesque world, with individuals, tribes and places that have a halo of myth about them. It serves to remind one how exotic-sounding Varangians, Trabki and Mir are as much a part of the history of Europe as the Normans, Paris and Windsor. The chapter soon enters familiar ground for students of Polish-Lithuanian history along with the tragedies of partition and submission to the brutality of the Russian states (both Tsarist and Soviet).
The chapter on Burgundy is both amusing and confusing. I think it shows Davies at his very best, trying to untangle a highly complex Gordian knot as patiently and simply as possible. He even advises weaker readers when to take a break! The chapter on Byzantium, on the other hand, is a very strange one (to say the least). It reads more like an introduction to some larger book rather than a "history" in the context of this weighty tome (readers with weak wrists beware!). It is almost like a rushed essay, given up in the end because the topic is either too vague or too great. Davies deals more with the abuses of historians rather than the decay of the state. One feels he could almost be on uncomfortable ground here - a strange chapter indeed.
I have always had a high regard for Norman Davies for he is, in my opinion, the first historian of Europe to try to rebalance the focus of history and correct the western bias which, mistakenly, ignores everything between Germanic Europe and Russia or treats it as unimportant, even insignificant and humorous. Thus it is inevitable that Davies is at his best when dealing with his particular area of interest: Eastern Europe. I have already mentioned his chapter on Litva but his chapter on "Borussia" (or Prussia) is excellent. He looks at the emergence of this state from an eastern perspective and thus gives it a freshness one hasn't come across before.
Sometimes it seems as if Prof Davies has chosen his topics in order to discuss something of particular interest to him, so that his chapter on Etruria is an excuse to follow the career of the Buonaparte (deliberate choice of spelling here) clan, and that on Rosenau to talk about Prince Albert (Queen Victoria's consort) and Carl-Eduard (the last duke of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha) and the British Royal family's attempt to re-brand itself and thus hide its German connections.
As is inevitable, there are many injustices brought to our attention, perhaps the most haunting being the fixed plebiscite which handed Savoy to France, and the post-Great War treatment of Montenegro which disturbingly mirrors that of the treatment of Poland after World War 2. No-one comes out of it with clean hands except, perhaps, for the victims.
History is full of such injustices carried out by ambitious, deluded or power-hungry individuals and their supporters or, as Davies points out in his chapter on the mayfly state of the Carpatho-Russyns, by historians who look at Eastern Europe as some backwater whose nationalistic hopes and dreams are inferior and lack the educated, cultural strengths of the West. I never forget the attitudes of my English colleagues during the Balkan upheavals that led to the collapse of Yugoslavia. They patronisingly asked why such far-off people should even think they were entitled to having their own states in this day-and-age.
I have to admit that I read the chapter on Eire with a degree of bafflement as I couldn't see how that state could fall into Davis' brief of "vanished" or "half-forgotten". I remained in this state of confusion until it became apparent, near the end, that Davis has used his discussion of Ireland as an excuse to discuss the manner in which the United Kingdom may fall apart. I have to say that this discussion left me feeling that historians should really stick to studying the past. It is a trend for historians to try to analyse the present through the mirror of the past... it reminds me of Hitler sitting in the bunker during the Nazi Gotterdammerung, waiting for the beat of destiny's wings to save him just as they had saved Frederick of Prussia, thus placing his faith in "German History" and forgetting that the future, just like the past, is a different country and will unfold in very different ways.
With the penultimate chapter we are back on safe ground. Davis looks at the death of the Soviet Union and balances that with the birth, demise and rebirth of Estonia. He reminds us that the history of modern Eastern Europe is one where individuals faced two great evils and often had to make choices that were not, and still are not, understood in a West that saw only one evil, Nazi Germany, and ignored the other - arguably greater evil - Stalinist Soviet Russia. I once read a short Science Fiction story in which the Earth was "liberated" again and again so that, in the end, we see the dire plight of the surviving liberated humans eking out a pitiful existence on the fragmented ruins of their planet... this was "liberation" in Eastern Europe. The collapse of the Soviet Union and the flowering of a free Estonia are a wonderful point on which to end the book.
This is a good read. The "failure" and collapse of nation states is a topic that merits study. Like the Romans, men walked the streets of Moscow unaware that they were on the brink of a change none of them could ever have imagined. When it came none of them could understand how it had happened... such creatures can be pitied... they should also be feared.(less)

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Apr 28, 2013 Richard Thomas rated it 5 of 5 stars

This is a fascinating tour d'horizon of some of the components of present day Europe - as the title says 'half-forgotten Europe' except to those who live there. It is an excellent piece of work both from the point of view of the general reader who wishes to understand why and how the present map of Europe developed (if that is not too organised a term) but also from the perspective of someone with an interest in the by ways of history. It goes without saying that the writing is good and Norman D...more

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Sep 02, 2012 Adrian added it

Davies chronicles fifteen European 'kingdoms' in chronological order beginning with the Visigoths and ending with the Soviet Union. Some of them are remote but the scholarship isn't. Extraneous unknown facts abound. Aragon controlled the principality of Athens. Many Muslims stayed in Spain to work the land. Burgundia took on numerous guises and survives today in the language of Arpitan. Luxembourg is a state because of Charlemagne. Davies interrupts his narrative to provide keen historiography....more

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Jan 30, 2013 Jonathan rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: history

Ever wonder what happened to the Crown of Aragon? How about the Kingdom of Sardinia? No? Galicia, maybe? Well, even so, Norman Davies' account of former polities in Europe is both an education in the birth, rise, decline of states and an entertaining read. Somehow, I always feel smarter after reading one of Davies' books. With that, there's always something annoying in his works; in Vanished Kingdoms it's long passages in completely incomprehensible languages, like Gaelic or Estonian. Why does h...more

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Nov 29, 2012 Grace rated it 3 of 5 stars

Highly informative. Sometimes too informative, for instance: 'one can also fly to the airport at Ronne, either by SAS Scandinavian or by the local carriers, Cimber Air and until April 2010 'Wings of Bornholm'.' But, on the whole, it was pretty interesting, using the example of states that are no more to point out how the countries and cultures that we think of as stable and unchanging are nothing of the sort. However, sometimes this book seemed a bit too focused on state-level activity and you w...more

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Mar 17, 2012 David Keith rated it 3 of 5 stars

Well, I read the first two sections before it was due back at the library.

The first on the Visigoths was quite dry, a list of sparse known facts left remaining, all that exists on the last Visigoth kings in what is now France. The second chapter on Dumbarton Rock, in Scotland fares a bit better, fleshed out a bit more, because there's more in the historical record. Great maps and several pages of illustrations are terrific, though I'd have liked to see more.

I'd like to finish this book at some...more

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Apr 30, 2012 Matthew rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: history

While the historical content of this book was very interesting, and in some cases, new and revealing, the overall theme seems to be more about how people think about history, or, rather, don't think about history. Since Davies is a specialist in Eastern Europe, I would guess that the examples from that area are most accurate, but I'm not a specialist in Eastern Europe, so I can't really judge it for myself. Still, I would definitely recommend this book, though if you're buying the ebook, wait fo...more

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May 19, 2013 Joan rated it 3 of 5 stars

This book was an interesting read- about a subject which I have read very little- a history of Europe through some of its vanished countries. I found it somewhat uneven. The chapter on Burgundy, while interesting, was almost too dense and confusing, but the ones on Aragon, Galicia and the Two Sicilies were really well done. The inclusion of Eire was a bit strange- last I looked, Ireland was still there. I did enjoy the snippets of poetry and songs from the various times and places. An enjoyable-...more

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Nov 01, 2012 Ross rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: history, european

the first thing to know here: davies is the kind of historian who cites poetry in every chapter and economic data in no chapters. i'm all for the inclusion of poetry in history texts, but he's really far to the old-school humanities end of the scale.

along the same lines, there's an element of sentimental wistfulness in a few chapters which isn't exactly a surprise, given the title, but is unconnected to his argument and weirdly excessive. i certainly think it's vital, like he says, to present un...more the first thing to know here: davies is the kind of historian who cites poetry in every chapter and economic data in no chapters. i'm all for the inclusion of poetry in history texts, but he's really far to the old-school humanities end of the scale.

along the same lines, there's an element of sentimental wistfulness in a few chapters which isn't exactly a surprise, given the title, but is unconnected to his argument and weirdly excessive. i certainly think it's vital, like he says, to present uncomfortable historical truths that counter the self-serving mythologies of present-day nationalists or governments. but really, some of these 'vanished kingdoms' were just dynastic curiosities and aren't missed by anyone - no one anywhere had a passionate attachment to galicia as a political unit, so in a sense, i don't understand why davies has one now. he's not quite a royalist either, since he argues against either monarchies or republics having a better moral record, and he seems indifferent to whether the british royal family sticks around or not.

the treatment of etruria (napoleonic kingdom of tuscany) is especially strange. we're first introduced to the thriving grand duchy of tuscany and its enlightened habsburg rulers. then the french revolution happens (quel dommage!!!); napoleon conquers everything and is rude to the grand duke. a client state with bourbon monarchs is set up; harsh french taxation and conscription depopulate the countryside and turn honest men into brigands; the admirable queen is widowed young and then pushed out along with her small children and their bumbling but goodhearted grandpa the king of spain. yet when the habsburgs get the grand duchy back from napoleon, they find it "in much better shape than they had left it." hmm?

still, there's a huge amount of raw history here that really isn't well-known, and it's valuable work to make it better known. davies isn't going to give you an objective social history, but he's very good at unraveling the details of overlapping sovereignty (esp. w/ brandenburg/prussia), tangled lines of succession, and postwar 'population transfers'.(less)

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Oct 11, 2012 May rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: history, read-2012

Even though the book is well-researched, the writing style is dull. Each chapter on a kingdom starts off with a modern trip to the area that sounds more like what you would find in a travel book. Unfortunately the approach seemed puzzling when discussing the kingdom of Burgundia. I still haven't quite figured out why the section starts off talking about an island off Sweden when the chapter is about the 15 different iterations of Burgundia which if you tried to describe its location, appear to b...more

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May 30, 2012 Celia rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I really enjoyed this. It was a bit of a slog at times, because, well, dynastic politics among families that seem to be choosing names for their offspring as if there's a tax on new ones generally are. I give the author credit for acknowledging this, and even if the genealogical details got a bit lost, the general thrust of who was in charge and how the ended up getting there was generally comprehensible. This is higher praise than it sounds, trust me.

I have other nit-picks, but most of them ha...more

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Nov 26, 2012 Tamara added it

Shelves: history, history-about, geography, europe, britain, balkans, poland, belarus, non-fiction, author-male

So this turned out to be waaaay more WTF than expected. While also being really fucking boring.

Now, i’m the ~~escapee~~ graduate of a Marxist cult that hasn’t incorporated a new idea since Warsaw Ghetto fell. I am perfectly at home with the notion that all accounts of history are an ideological construct - including the ones you *(yes, you) hold dear. Since history can never be known, but only abused, you might as well shrug and move on with the brainwashing. So the question then becomes, what is th...more

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May 28, 2012 Hadrian rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: history, nonfiction

A rather interesting, albeit cluttered, set of historical essays on states and nations which no longer exist, from the kingdoms of Spain to Alt Clud/Strathclyde in Scotland, to the USSR.

The memory of every thing is overwhelmed in time, says Marcus Aurelius, three centuries before his empire passed. Why did these old states crumble - wars, internal strife, warring ethnicites, imperial ambitions? Perhaps. Some states, like the Republic of Carpatho-Ruthenia, survived for but a day, swallowed by the...more

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May 07, 2013 Mauro Mello rated it 2 of 5 stars

This book is built on a good idea - to give relatively brief accounts of largely unknown kingdoms. The problem is Mr. Davies takes a really, really, personal approach to the project, selecting his subjects very randomly and entirely on his personal tastes or even family ties.

Needless to say there isn't any remotely common theme or thesis aligning the different chapters.

It's a shame. This could be a very interesting project, if executed by a more insightful historian.

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Feb 13, 2012 Barbara rated it 3 of 5 stars

This was exciting to read at first. It appeared very well researched, but too long for my taste. I read the introduction and first five chapters completely, skimmed some of the next seven chapters and then read the last three completely. If I didn't have to return it to the library or could read it a little at a time I probably would have read every chapter thoroughly. I agree with his conclusions, it is only a matter of time until the countries we know ... vanish!

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May 17, 2012 Max Carmichael rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Ironically, Davies starts out bemoaning the over-specialization of historians, and then gives us the same old litany of ruling dynasties, their capitol cities, and their wars. What I look for is a historical rendering of place and daily life, society and ecology, but I got virtually none of that here. On the plus side, he wisely uses contemporary regional poetry throughout to evoke those dynasties and wars, and the natives' poetry is naturally stronger than the historian's prose could ever be. A...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

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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