47 Norman Davies Quotes for You to Enjoy

Norman Davies

British Historian

Born: Jun 8, 1939

Europe History People War Will World

Related authors: A. J. P. Taylor Antony Beevor Arnold J. Toynbee Arthur Helps C. Northcote Parkinson Linda Colley Neil MacGregor Simon Schama

Serenity is the balance between good and bad, life and death, horrors and pleasures. Life is, as it were, defined by death. If there wasn't death of things, then there wouldn't be any life to celebrate. Norman Davies

Life Death Good Balance Celebrate Defined Pleasures Bad Life And Death Horrors Between Were Any Then Good And Bad Serenity Things

Poland in the 1990s saw a surge of unrestrained, American-style capitalism. With millions of Poles living in the U.S.A., the defeat of communism led many to aim for a lifestyle derivative of Chicago or Detroit. Norman Davies

Capitalism Communism Living Defeat Aim Saw Detroit Lifestyle Poland Poles Surge Led Chicago Derivative Many Millions

I do belong to the club which doesn't see a distinction between academic history and popular history. Norman Davies

History Club Distinction See Between Academic Which Popular Belong

I don't see why a book shouldn't be intellectually sound, entertaining, and fun to read. Historians who write academic history, which is unreadable, are basically wasting their time. Norman Davies

Time History Book Entertaining See Write Academic Read Sound Historians Intellectually Which Who Fun Why Wasting Basically

History is very much bound up in family experience. Norman Davies

Family History Experience Bound Up Very Much

The E.U. is an organization that was created after the Second World War for calming down the nationalism of member states, and it did so very successfully. Norman Davies

War World Organization Nationalism Down States Member Calming Very Did After Created Successfully Second World War Second World War

It was in the 20th century that national sovereignty really ruled the roost, and the E.U. was formed to cure that. Norman Davies

National Ruled Cure National Sovereignty Sovereignty Formed Century Roost Really

Traditionally, historians thought in terms of invasions: the Celts took over the islands, then the Romans, then the Anglo-Saxons. It now seems much more likely that the resident population doesn't change as much as thought. The people stay put but are reculturalized by some new dominant culture. Norman Davies

States seem to have a natural life cycle, and anything can occur to change them into something else, and that something might be no bad thing. Norman Davies

Life Change Natural Else States Bad Seem Something Something Else Bad Thing Occur Anything Natural Life Them Might Cycle Thing

All political institutions will end sooner or later. The question is when and how. Norman Davies

Political Will Later Sooner Sooner Or Later Institutions How Question Political Institutions End

Our mental maps are distorted by who are the 'winners' of history and who are the powers of today. Norman Davies

Today History Our Distorted Mental Winners Powers Who Maps

All states and nations, however great, bloom for a season and are replaced. Norman Davies

Great States However Replaced Bloom Nations Season

Poland was the racial laboratory of the Nazis. This is where they started to put their abhorrent theories into practice. Norman Davies

Practice Abhorrent Put Poland Laboratory Where Racial Theories Started

In 1945, when the Second World War technically ends in Poland, the incoming Soviet army liberates some groups of people but begins to oppress the general population, in some ways more harshly than it had happened before. Norman Davies

War Army People World Technically Before Liberates Ways Harshly Some General More Had Poland Oppress Than Begins Soviet Ends Happened Groups Population Incoming Second World War Second World War

Nowadays, it is no longer possible to maintain that the Nazi-Soviet pact of 23 August 1939 was a fiction invented by bourgeois-imperialist enemies. Everyone has seen the film clips of Herr Ribbentrop landing in Moscow, and of Stalin smiling broadly as Ribbentrop and Molotov signed up side by side. Norman Davies

Enemies Seen Nowadays Side Everyone Signed Possible Invented Maintain Longer Moscow Smiling August Up Fiction Stalin Pact Landing Film

A bad historian is even more dangerous than dead documentary wood. Norman Davies

Dangerous Bad More Dead Documentary Historian Than Wood Even

Nearly all interested parties think I write too shortly on the subjects that interest them most. Norman Davies

Think Too Write Most Parties Subjects Interest Interested Them Nearly

There is history in condoms, there is history in lampshades, there is history in everything. Norman Davies

History Everything

I wanted to produce a book that would demonstrate not only the rich diversity of people who answered to Anders's command but also the extraordinary variety of their experiences and emotions: from death to despair, fear and longings and eventually to hope. Norman Davies

Young people have to learn in a cocoon filled with false optimism. Unlike their parents and grandparents, they grow up with very little sense of the pitiless passage of time. Norman Davies

Time People Parents Young Sense Unlike Learn Passage False Up Optimism Very Young People Little Grandparents Grow Filled Grow Up Cocoon

None of Europe's modern nations are genuinely native. Norman Davies

None Genuinely Modern Nations Native Europe

I happen to belong to that group opinion which holds the break-up of the United Kingdom to be imminent. Norman Davies

Group Imminent Kingdom Opinion Happen Holds Which United United Kingdom Belong

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