Vanished Kingdoms Quotes

“One has to put aside the popular notion that language and culture are endlessly passed on from generation to generation, rather as if ‘Scottishness’ or ‘Englishness’ were essential constituents of some national genetic code. If this were so, it would never be possible to forge new nations – like the United States of America or Australia – from diverse ethnic elements.”
― Norman Davies, Vanished Kingdoms: The History of Half-Forgotten Europe

“That the United Kingdom will collapse is a foregone conclusion. Sooner or later, all states do collapse, and ramshackle, asymmetric dynastic amalgamations are more vulnerable than cohesive nation-states. Only the ‘how’ and the ‘when’ are mysteries of the future. An exhaustive study of the many pillars on which British power and prestige were built – ranging from the monarchy, the Royal Navy and the Empire to the Protestant Ascendancy, the Industrial Revolution, Parliament and Sterling – indicated that all without exception were in decline; some were already defunct, others seriously diminished or debilitated; it suggests that the last act may come sooner rather than later.110 Nothing implies that the end will necessarily be violent; some political organisms dissolve quietly. All it means is that present structures will one day disappear, and be replaced by something else.”
― Norman Davies, Vanished Kingdoms: The History of Half-Forgotten Europe

“All the nations that ever lived have left their footsteps in the sand. The traces fade with every tide, the echoes grow faint, the images are fractured, the human material is atomized and recycled. But if we know where to look, there is always a remnant, a remainder, an irreducible residue.”
― Norman Davies, Vanished Kingdoms: The History of Half-Forgotten Europe

“The history of Royal Prussia, which fell into the Polish orbit, is little known to those who approach the Prussian story from an exclusively German perspective. (The subject was actively suppressed by bans and book-burnings when the Hohenzollerns eventually took over.) Yet for 300 years this ‘Other Prussia’ flourished, not only as a separate institutional entity, but as the source of a separate political ideology and culture, based on concepts of freedom and liberty. Though the population was ethically mixed, Polish and German – with a strong German predominance in the cities – the corporate identity and fierce local patriotism of Royal Prussia digressed markedly from the values with which the name of ‘Prussia’ is usually associated.”
― Norman Davies, Vanished Kingdoms: The History of Half-Forgotten Europe

“According to the official version, he replied, ‘La Garde meurt, mais ne se rend pas’ (‘The Guard dies, but doesn’t surrender’). Rumour spread, however, that ‘le Mot de Cambronne’ was not meurt, but a different five-letter m-word. A hundred years later, French encyclopedias were still refusing to quote him exactly. 65 ‘A mistake may be admitted after one day,’ it has been said; ‘if delayed, the truth will emerge after one century.’ 66 Bertrand would survive to accompany his master on the second exile. 67 Drouot lived on, and was made famous by his great oration when Napoleon’s remains were interred in Les Invalides in 1840. 68”
― Norman Davies, Vanished Kingdoms: The History of Half-Forgotten Europe

“By way of recapitulation, therefore, it may be appropriate to present a summary of Note A (Revised): 1. 410–36 The first Burgundian kingdom of Gundahar (Bryce’s I). 2. 451–534 The second Burgundian kingdom, founded by Gundioc. 3. c. 590–734 The third (Frankish) kingdom of Burgundy (Bryce’s II). 4. 843–1384 The French Duchy of Burgundy (Bryce’s X). 5. 879–933 The Kingdom of Lower Burgundy (Bryce’s III). 6. 888–933 The Kingdom of Upper Burgundy (Bryce’s IV). 7. 933–1032 The united Kingdom of the Two Burgundies (Arelate) (Bryce’s V). 8. c. 1000–1678 The County-Palatine of Burgundy (Franche-Comté) (Bryce’s VII). 9. 1032–? The imperial Kingdom of Burgundy. 10. 1127–1218 The imperial Duchy of Lesser Burgundy (Bryce’s VI). 11. 1127+ The imperial Landgravate of Burgundy (Bryce’s VIII). 12. 1384–1477 The united ‘States of Burgundy’. 13. 1477–1791 The French province of Burgundy (Bourgogne). 14. 1548–1795 The Imperial Burgundian Circle (Bryce’s IX). 15. 1982+ The contemporary French region of Bourgogne.”
― Norman Davies, Vanished Kingdoms: The History of Half-Forgotten Europe

“*NB. Carlos III of Spain, Carlo I of Parma, Carlo VIII of Naples and Carlo V of Sicily were the same man.”
― Norman Davies, Vanished Kingdoms: The History of Half-Forgotten Europe

“The immediate future may be determined by a race between the United Kingdom and the EU over which beats the other to a major crisis.”
― Norman Davies, Vanished Kingdoms: The History of Half-Forgotten Europe

“It was at ‘The Little Lodge’ I was first menaced with Education. The approach of a sinister figure described as ‘the Governess’ was announced … Mrs Everest produced a book called Reading without Tears. It certainly did not justify its title in my case … [When] the Governess was due to arrive, I did what so many oppressed peoples have done in similar circumstances: I took to the woods. I”
― Norman Davies, Vanished Kingdoms: The History of Half-Forgotten Europe

“The difference between a referendum and a plebiscite is a fine one. Both pertain to collective decisions made by the direct vote of all qualified adults. The referendum, which derives from Swiss practice, involves an issue that is provisionally determined in advance, but that is then ‘referred’ for a final decision by the whole electorate. This”
― Norman Davies, Vanished Kingdoms: The History of Half-Forgotten Europe

“Historians usually focus their attention on the past of countries that still exist, writing hundreds and thousands of books on British history, French history, German history, Russian history, American history, Chinese history, Indian history, Brazilian history or whatever. Whether consciously or not, they are seeking the roots of the present, thereby putting themselves in danger of reading history backwards. As soon as great powers arise, whether the United States in the twentieth century or China in the twenty-first, the call goes out for offerings on American History or Chinese History, and siren voices sing that today’s important countries are also those whose past is most deserving of examination, that a more comprehensive spectrum of historical knowledge can be safely ignored.”
― Norman Davies, Vanished Kingdoms: The History of Half-Forgotten Europe

“the Welsh name for ‘England’, Lloegr, meant ‘the Lost Land’, I fell for the fancy, imagining what a huge sense of loss and forgetting the name expresses. A learned colleague has since told me that my imagination had outrun the etymology. Yet as someone brought up in English surroundings, I never cease to be amazed that everywhere which we now call ‘England’ was once not English at all.”
― Norman Davies, Vanished Kingdoms: The History of Half-Forgotten Europe