I always confuse Norman Davies with the ebullient Norman Stone- another expert on Eastern Europe with splendid linguistic skills. I would also recommend Adam Zamoyski’s book Warsaw 1920 which was quite fascinating. Davies book on Wroclow (Breslau) is in my mind currently because of the situation in Lviv (Ukraine).
It’s well over thirty years since I first came across and read this monumental work by Norman Davies, who is the current expert par excellence on Polish history, so much so that all of his works have been translated into Polish and seem to rank alongside native-born historians’ work…
He begins by making it clear that it’s not merely the physical/ geographical location of Poland in the Central European plain sandwiched between Germany and Russia that creates many of that nation’s difficulties, but also Poland’s rule, and lack of it, too. He manages dexterously to pick his way through the minefield of the borderlands, national allegiances and historical changes in a way only recently paralleled by Timothy Snyder; he also demolishes a good number of nationalist myths and sacred cows along the way. It’s worth reminding ourselves that this history was written in the days of…
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