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" There is a real danger of the United Kingdom breaking up. There is a loss of common identity. "
Norman Davies
Danger
Identity
Kingdom
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" 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
" 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
" Transience is one of the fundamental characteristics both of the human condition and of the political order. "
Norman Davies
Political
Human
Order
" 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. "
Norman Davies
Events
Why
Last
" Nothing stands still. Everything is moving in some direction or another. "
Norman Davies
Moving
Everything
Direction
" All states and nations, however great, bloom for a season and are replaced. "
Norman Davies
States
Season
Bloom
" Bulgaria was the only Axis country to deflect insistent German demands for the deportation of its Jews. "
Norman Davies
Jews
Country
Deportation
" All political institutions will end sooner or later. The question is when and how. "
Norman Davies
How
End
Will
" The one certainly for anyone in the path of an avalanche is this: standing still is not an option. "
Norman Davies
Option
Standing
Still
" 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 most noticeable thing about the Soviet collapse was that it followed a natural course. "
Norman Davies
Natural
Soviet
Course
" I find myself sick to death, tired of arguing about details with people who don't know basic facts. "
Norman Davies
Death
Details
Myself
" 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
" 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
" A bad historian is even more dangerous than dead documentary wood. "
Norman Davies
Wood
Than
Bad
" 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
" 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
" 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 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
" 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
" The Black Sea is Eastern Europe's counterpart to the Mediterranean. "
Norman Davies
Europe
Sea
Black
" 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. "
Norman Davies
First
Story
Army
" Our mental maps are distorted by who are the 'winners' of history and who are the powers of today. "
Norman Davies
History
Winners
Today
" 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
" History is very much bound up in family experience. "
Norman Davies
Up
Experience
Family
" Nearly all interested parties think I write too shortly on the subjects that interest them most. "
Norman Davies
Think
Interest
Write
" 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
" I happen to belong to that group opinion which holds the break-up of the United Kingdom to be imminent. "
Norman Davies
Group
Happen
Kingdom
" The 'politics of memory' policy appears to work largely by insinuation. "
Norman Davies
Appears
Memory
Policy
" I do belong to the club which doesn't see a distinction between academic history and popular history. "
Norman Davies
Club
See
Academic