Home › Authors › Norman Davies
Norman Davies Quotes
born 1939 England
Ivor Norman Richard Davies CMG FBA FRHistS (born 8 June 1939) is a British and Polish historian, known for his publications on the history of Europe, Poland and the United Kingdom. He has a special interest in Central and Eastern Europe and is UNESCO Professor at the Jagiellonian University, professor emeritus at University College London, a visiting professor at the Collège d'Europe, and an honorary fellow at St Antony's College, Oxford.
England Academics Historians Random Norman Davies quote
14 quotes
For more than five hundred years the cardinal problem in defining Europe has centred on the inclusion or exclusion of Russia.
Europe: A History (1996)
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.
Vanished Kingdoms (2011)
The formula Muscovy + Ukraine = Russia does not feature in the Russians’ own version of their history; but it is fundamental.
Europe: A History (1996)
They wanted peace and they fought for thirty years to be sure of it. They did not learn then, and have not learned since, that war only breeds war.
Europe: A History (1996)
It is indeed the duty of historians to stress the contrast between the standards of the past and the standards of the present. Some fulfil that duty on purpose, others by accident.
Europe: A History (1996)
Arguably, the only fruit of the Crusades kept by the Christians was the apricot.
Europe: A History (1996)
Contrary to some expectations, Europe's brush with modern power revived its Christian culture. The 'Railway Age' was also the age of muscular Christianity.
Europe: A History (1996)
The debased coinage of his reign bore his initials, ICR: Iohannes Casimirus Rex. These were taken to stand for Initium Calamitatum Reipublicae, the Beginning of the Republic's Catastrophes.
Europe: A History (1996)
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.
Vanished Kingdoms (2011)
There are shades of barbarism in twentieth-century Europe which would once have amazed the most barbarous of barbarians. At a time when the instruments of constructive change had outstripped anything previously known, Europeans acquiesced in a string of conflicts which destroyed more human beings than all past convulsions put together.
Europe: A History (1996)
Historical knowledge does not need artificial protection. ... The truth about the past can only be established and strengthened by the clash of wisdom and absurdity. If absurdity is banned by the law, wisdom too is diminished.
Reconstructing the past is rather like translating poetry. It can be done, but never exactly. Whether one deals with prehistoric recipes, colonial settlements, or medieval music, it needs great imagination and restraint if the twin perils of artless authenticity and clueless empathy are to be avoided.
Europe: A History (1996)
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.
Vanished Kingdoms (2011)
If enough people in society can be convinced that history is governed by scientific laws: that Soviet-style Socialism is the inevitable product of historical progress: and that the Soviet Union embodies all the finest socialist ideals of peace, equality, and justice, then rational people should be incapable of defying the rule of the Soviet government and its chosen allies.
Topics Norman Davies is quoted on
Works