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" All states and nations, however great, bloom for a season and are replaced. "
Norman Davies
States
Season
Bloom
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" It was in the 20th century that national sovereignty really ruled the roost, and the E.U. was formed to cure that. "
Norman Davies
Cure
Sovereignty
Really
" Transience is one of the fundamental characteristics both of the human condition and of the political order. "
Norman Davies
Political
Human
Order
" Myth-making is absolutely necessary to create the simplified images that people live off. "
Norman Davies
Live
Necessary
Create
" History must give the Poles the principal credit for bringing the Soviet bloc to its knees. "
Norman Davies
Principal
Knees
History
" I find myself sick to death, tired of arguing about details with people who don't know basic facts. "
Norman Davies
Death
Details
Myself
" 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
Balance
Death
Good
" Nearly all interested parties think I write too shortly on the subjects that interest them most. "
Norman Davies
Think
Interest
Write
" None of Europe's modern nations are genuinely native. "
Norman Davies
None
Modern
Europe
" 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
Think
Remember
I Can
" 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
Circle
Reaction
Roots
" 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
Hope
Diversity
Death
" A bad historian is even more dangerous than dead documentary wood. "
Norman Davies
Wood
Than
Bad
" 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
Knowledge
Black
Writing
" 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
Opinions
Tolerance
Squad
" The most noticeable thing about the Soviet collapse was that it followed a natural course. "
Norman Davies
Natural
Soviet
Course
" 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
History
Know
Country
" Poland was the racial laboratory of the Nazis. This is where they started to put their abhorrent theories into practice. "
Norman Davies
Laboratory
Racial
Practice
" The last years of fading communism provided an ideal environment for Poland's Catholic Church, which acted as an umbrella for dissenters of all sorts. "
Norman Davies
Church
Last
Environment
" 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
Women
Children
Endurance
" Capacity of human societies both to absorb and to discard cultures is much underestimated. "
Norman Davies
Human
Much
Absorb
" 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
People
Change
Culture
" 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
Everyone
Film
Side
" 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
Future
Independent
Project
" The Russian myths of the Second World War are still intact. "
Norman Davies
Second
Myths
Still
" Each side tries to legitimize their aims by appealing to history, sometimes selectively choosing episodes and other times just by inventing history. "
Norman Davies
History
Sometimes
Choosing
" 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
Government
Wealth
Culture
" Our mental maps are distorted by who are the 'winners' of history and who are the powers of today. "
Norman Davies
History
Winners
Today
" 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
Organization
World
Second
" Why are some things remembered and others forgotten? That is the theme I want to pursue about the Second World War. "
Norman Davies
Why
World
Theme
" 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
Red
Dissent
House