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" The Black Sea is Eastern Europe's counterpart to the Mediterranean. "
Norman Davies
Europe
Sea
Black
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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
Women
Children
Endurance
" 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
" Nearly all interested parties think I write too shortly on the subjects that interest them most. "
Norman Davies
Think
Interest
Write
" 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
" Europe's fragmentation puts the wider historical picture beyond reach. "
Norman Davies
Picture
Historical
Beyond
" 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 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
World
More
Army
" The United Kingdom is not, and never has been, a nation state. "
Norman Davies
Been
Never
United
" 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
She
People
Ideas
" The 'politics of memory' policy appears to work largely by insinuation. "
Norman Davies
Appears
Memory
Policy
" 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
Death
People
King
" 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
" 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
" 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 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
" 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
" Poland is the natural bridge between East and West. "
Norman Davies
West
Natural
Poland
" Nothing stands still. Everything is moving in some direction or another. "
Norman Davies
Moving
Everything
Direction
" It is important to remember that John Paul II was not an American or a Frenchman. "
Norman Davies
American
Paul
Important
" None of Europe's modern nations are genuinely native. "
Norman Davies
None
Modern
Europe
" 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 idea that historians write the definitive version of something that will last for all time is less current than it used to be. "
Norman Davies
Will
Last
Something
" It's our vanity that makes us think that what forms part of our world today must be stable and secure. "
Norman Davies
Secure
Us
Vanity
" Myth-making is absolutely necessary to create the simplified images that people live off. "
Norman Davies
Live
Necessary
Create
" 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
" History must give the Poles the principal credit for bringing the Soviet bloc to its knees. "
Norman Davies
Principal
Knees
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. "
Norman Davies
Optimism
Grow
Time
" I find myself sick to death, tired of arguing about details with people who don't know basic facts. "
Norman Davies
Death
Details
Myself
" 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
" 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
See
Book
Time