Quotes by Norman Davies - Page 2 | QuoteForever

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One might have thought that 70 years was time enough to work out what really happened in 1939. It isn't the case. Misunderstandings and misinformation abound.
Norman Davies / Historian
Misinformation
Work Out
Abound
Time Work Enough
Case
Misunderstandings
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Why does a state last a thousand years? Why not 999? Why not a thousand and one? What are the events that finally bring the whole thing down? That is what I am asking.
Norman Davies / Historian
Thousand
Thousand Years
Why Not
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In the years of the Red Terror that followed the Bolshevik Revolution, the voice of dissent was stifled by universal denunciations, house searches, and preventive arrests.
Norman Davies / Historian
Dissent
Revolution
Terror
Arrest
Bolshevik
Followed
Preventive
Searches
Stifled
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At the end of the Roman Empire, in the Byzantine period, the empire shrinks and shrinks until it consists of one city, Constantinople, and the Ottoman Turks can encircle it.
Norman Davies / Historian
Roman Empire
Shrinks
Consists
Empire
Roman
Turks
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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 / Historian
Filled
Cocoon
False
Grow Up
Unlike
Passage
Young People
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Historical change is like an avalanche. The starting point is a snow-covered mountainside that looks solid. All changes take place under the surface and are rather invisible.
Norman Davies / Historian
Historical
Invisible
Looks
Starting
Starting Point
Surface
Avalanche
Changes
Take
Solid
Place
Point
Rather
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One of the problems in the Ukrainian crisis is that very few Westerners know their history, or if they know it, what they learn is what we call the Russian version of history.
Norman Davies / Historian
Crisis
Ukrainian
Version
One Of The Problems
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The advance of standard English culture was less assisted by government policy than by the sheer weight, wealth, and number of England's well-established cultural institutions.
Norman Davies / Historian
England
Policy
Sheer
Wealth
Weight
Advance
Assisted
Cultural
Standard
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It's unimaginable to meet a Pole or a German who does not know about the history of their country. But lots of English people don't know the difference between Britain and England.
Norman Davies / Historian
Britain
Unimaginable
History People Know
German
English People
History Country People
Pole
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I first came across the Anders Army story by accident. When I first went to live in Oxford in the 1960s, I discovered that some of my close neighbours had been on the Anders trail.
Norman Davies / Historian
Army
Oxford
Accident
Neighbours
Trail
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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 / Historian
Academic
Entertaining
Historians
Intellectually
Wasting
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People don't see very often their death coming... Look at the French Revolution: The king of France was thinking in the 1780s, 'We're doing rather better than my father in the 1770s.'
Norman Davies / Historian
France
French Revolution
Revolution
French
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Under Lenin, hardly less than under Stalin, historians harbored critical opinions at their peril. The writing, let alone the publication, of political diaries was virtually impossible.
Norman Davies / Historian
Diaries
Publication
Hardly
Historians
Lenin
Opinions
Stalin
Virtually
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The historical profession is nowhere famous for its tolerance, but there are not many countries where historians can expect to pay for their opinions with penal servitude or the firing squad.
Norman Davies / Historian
Firing
Profession
Servitude
Squad
Tolerance
Nowhere
Historians
Opinions
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The Terror-Famine of 1932-33 was a dual-purpose by product of collectivization, designed to suppress Ukrainian nationalism and the most important concentration of prosperous peasants at one throw.
Norman Davies / Historian
Important
Purpose
Ukraine
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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 / Historian
Death
Good
Balance
Celebrate
Defined
Good And Bad
Life And Death
Serenity
Things
Life Death Good
Then
Any
Bad
Between
Were
Horrors
Pleasures
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In the 21st century, there will probably be a reflex against the disintegration of traditional European culture. What started as a reaction will come full circle, and there will be a return to the roots.
Norman Davies / Historian
Disintegration
Return
Roots
Traditional
Circle
Reaction
Reflex
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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 / Historian
Aim
Capitalism
Chicago
Communism
Defeat
Detroit
Lifestyle
Millions
Poland
Surge
Derivative
Saw
Led
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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 / Historian
Army
Groups
Poland
Population
Second World War
Soviet
War World People
General
Begins
Technically
Harshly
Incoming
Liberates
Oppress
World War
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The official ideology [of Poland] is Marxism-Leninism, which no one openly admits to believing. For Marx expressed the German view, and Lenin the Russian one, and the meeting of these particular minds has always spelled Polish ruin.
Norman Davies / Historian
Believe
Mind
Views
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Northern Ireland must, in future, be absorbed into the Irish republic. Wales and Scotland must advance from devolution to full independent status. The four nations of these islands must commit themselves absolutely to the project of a United Europe.
Norman Davies / Historian
Commit
Ireland
Northern Ireland
Republic
Scotland
Wales
Absorb
Advance
Northern
Status
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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 / Historian
Despair
Extraordinary
Variety
Answered
Demonstrate
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The shores of the Black Sea lend themselves to the literary genre that may be classified as 'cultural pilgrimage,' which is not just a higher form of travel writing but which has the further mission of reporting on present conditions and supplying neglected knowledge.
Norman Davies / Historian
Conditions
Genre
Neglected
Pilgrimage
Sea
Classified
Cultural
Literary
Further
Mission
Lend
Reporting
Shores
Supplying
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Fifty years would seem to be time enough to prepare a definitive history of the Second World War. In an age of instant data-gathering, one might think that the historians could have arrived at a consensus for interpreting the main events of the war. In reality, no such consensus exists.
Norman Davies / Historian
Consensus
Instant
Interpreting
Second World War
War Time History
Definitive
Exists
Historians
Prepare
World War
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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 / Historian
Dominant
Population
Historians
Resident
Romans
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I can just remember the blitz of Manchester, or perhaps my father's tales about the blitz of Manchester. I can remember the blackout, the powdered eggs, and the gas masks. But I think no British person should pretend that being resident in England could count as being in the thick of the action.
Norman Davies / Historian
Blitz
Eggs
Gas
Manchester
Tales
Thick
Blackout
Count
Pretend
Masks
Resident
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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 / Historian
August
Landing
Moscow
Pact
Enemies
Maintain
Nowadays
Signed
Smiling
Stalin
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I first heard of General Anders and his army more than 50 years ago. I admired him then, and I admire him still; and I feel a special bond with the men, women and children whom he rescued from hunger, disease, and official abuse. Theirs is a story of endurance and fortitude that gives one faith in the human spirit.
Norman Davies / Historian
Faith
Abuse
Admire
Army
Disease
Endurance
Fortitude
Heard
Human Spirit
Hunger
Special
Years Ago
Men Women Feel
Faith Men Women
Admired
General
Bond
Faith Women Men
Gives
Official
Rescued
Story
Whom
Women And Children
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For people familiar with Eastern Europe, Marci Shore's 'The Taste of Ashes' is, in spite of its subject matter, delicious. A professor at Yale with much experience in Eastern Europe, she writes with great sureness of touch, weaving personal recollections with intellectual commentary and ideas with emotions, including her own.
Norman Davies / Historian
Ashes
Commentary
Delicious
Eastern
Eastern Europe
Familiar
Shore
Spite
Subject Matter
Weaving
Experience Great People
Professor
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