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" Nearly all interested parties think I write too shortly on the subjects that interest them most. "
Norman Davies
Think
Interest
Write
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" The 'politics of memory' policy appears to work largely by insinuation. "
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" None of Europe's modern nations are genuinely native. "
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" Each side tries to legitimize their aims by appealing to history, sometimes selectively choosing episodes and other times just by inventing history. "
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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. "
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House
" Any historian worth their salt should be aware of wars, conflicts, catastrophes. They happen. This is part of the panorama. "
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Happen
Should
" There is a real danger of the United Kingdom breaking up. There is a loss of common identity. "
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Danger
Identity
Kingdom
" 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. "
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Women
Children
Endurance
" It's the historian's job not to ridicule the myths, but to show the difference between myth and reality. "
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Job
Difference
Myths
" 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. "
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Change
Invisible
Looks
" The question is whether a confident Europe will be a rival for North America - or whether they will work together and become a more unified bloc. "
Norman Davies
America
Work
Will
" The most noticeable thing about the Soviet collapse was that it followed a natural course. "
Norman Davies
Natural
Soviet
Course
" 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
" Only by painting the great panorama of history, can the great history-reading public be entertained or satisfied. "
Norman Davies
Satisfied
Great
History
" The United Kingdom is not, and never has been, a nation state. "
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Been
Never
United
" 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
Time
Years
Enough
" I do belong to the club which doesn't see a distinction between academic history and popular history. "
Norman Davies
Club
See
Academic
" Bulgaria was the only Axis country to deflect insistent German demands for the deportation of its Jews. "
Norman Davies
Jews
Country
Deportation
" 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
" 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
" The one certainly for anyone in the path of an avalanche is this: standing still is not an option. "
Norman Davies
Option
Standing
Still
" I always needle a bit when people say I'm a champion of the Poles, because I've always had a very multinational view of Poland. "
Norman Davies
Had
Say
View
" 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
" Nothing stands still. Everything is moving in some direction or another. "
Norman Davies
Moving
Everything
Direction
" Our mental maps are distorted by who are the 'winners' of history and who are the powers of today. "
Norman Davies
History
Winners
Today
" 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
" 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
" One of the few things that can be said for certain about Europe's prehistoric peoples is that they all came from somewhere else. "
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Few
Europe
Things
" The Euro Sceptics are the English National Party in disguise, and they have poor old David Cameron over a barrel. "
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Old
Party
Poor
" 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. "
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World
History
Think
" 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
Anything
Life
Change