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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. "

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" 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

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" One of the few things that can be said for certain about Europe's prehistoric peoples is that they all came from somewhere else. "

" 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. "

" History must give the Poles the principal credit for bringing the Soviet bloc to its knees. "

" The Black Sea is Eastern Europe's counterpart to the Mediterranean. "

" 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. "

" The most noticeable thing about the Soviet collapse was that it followed a natural course. "

" Only by painting the great panorama of history, can the great history-reading public be entertained or satisfied. "

" None of Europe's modern nations are genuinely native. "

" Bulgaria was the only Axis country to deflect insistent German demands for the deportation of its Jews. "

" 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. "

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

" 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. "

" The 'politics of memory' policy appears to work largely by insinuation. "

" The Law and Justice government does not want a bunch of foreign historians to decide what goes on in 'their' museum. "

" 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. "

" 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.' "

" 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. "

" Winners of wars get a standing start in the post-war stakes of remembrance. "

" The Euro Sceptics are the English National Party in disguise, and they have poor old David Cameron over a barrel. "

" There is a real danger of the United Kingdom breaking up. There is a loss of common identity. "

" 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. "

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

" 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. "

" The one certainly for anyone in the path of an avalanche is this: standing still is not an option. "

" 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. "

" So long as classical education and classical prejudices prevailed, educated Englishmen inevitably saw ancient Britain as an alien land. "

" It's the historian's job not to ridicule the myths, but to show the difference between myth and reality. "

" 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. "

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