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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. "

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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

Know

History

Crisis

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

" Every austerity measure that Cameron and George Osborne make is being presented in Scotland as the English starving us. "

Norman Davies

Scotland

English

" 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. "

" 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. "

" Capacity of human societies both to absorb and to discard cultures is much underestimated. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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.' "

" 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. "

" 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. "

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

" History is very much bound up in family experience. "

Norman Davies

Experience

Family

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

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

" The United Kingdom is not, and never has been, a nation state. "

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

" 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. "

" I happen to belong to that group opinion which holds the break-up of the United Kingdom to be imminent. "

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

" 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. "

" It was in the 20th century that national sovereignty really ruled the roost, and the E.U. was formed to cure that. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" It's our vanity that makes us think that what forms part of our world today must be stable and secure. "

Norman Davies

Secure

Vanity

" 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. "

" 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. "

" All states and nations, however great, bloom for a season and are replaced. "

" Any historian worth their salt should be aware of wars, conflicts, catastrophes. They happen. This is part of the panorama. "

" It is important to remember that John Paul II was not an American or a Frenchman. "