Vanished Kingdoms: The History of Half-Forgotten Europe - Softcover

Davies, Norman

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0141048867 ISBN 13: 9780141048864

Publisher: Penguin, 2012

Synopsis

From Norman Davies, the acclaimed author of Europe: A History, comes the magical history of Europe's lost realms, selected as a Book of the Year by the Sunday Times, Daily Telegraph, New Statesman, Independent, Guardian and Financial Times.

Europe's history is littered with kingdoms, duchies, empires and republics which have now disappeared but which were once fixtures on the map of their age. What happened to the once-great Mediterranean 'Empire of Aragon'? Where did the half-forgotten kingdoms of Burgundy go? Which current nations will one day become a distant memory too? This original and enthralling book peers through the cracks of history to discover the stories of lost realms across the centuries.

'Dazzling, provocative and brilliant' Dominic Sandbrook, Sunday Times, Books of the Year

'A luminous account ... there are few better ways of understanding the multilayered splendours and horrors of Europe's past than through the pages of this wise, humane and unfailingly engaging book' John Adamson, Sunday Telegraph

'Vanished Kingdoms is great history and also great art. It is written with verve, passion and profound empathy' David Marquand, New Statesman, Books of the Year

'A magnificent achievement. Brocaded with scholarship, the book is unlikely ever to be equalled' Ian Thomson, Independent

About this title

Review:

"An alternative history of Europe that is . . . densely packed yet commendably accessible, magisterial, and uncommonly humane."--"The Boston Globe" "Davies is certainly one of the best British historical writers of the past half century, and every gauntlet he throws down is bejeweled. His literary gifts and his capacity for what he nicely calls 'imaginative sympathy' are stretched to their limits by this challenging project. . . . Yet Davies succeeds, and it is quite a success." --Timothy Snyder, "The Guardian" (London) "Hugely ambitious . . . From the mists, Mr. Davies summons the kingdoms; he records their emergence, their flowering and their demise--whether by 'internall diseases' or 'forraign warre' in Thomas Hobbes's words. And he examines the traces that the kingdoms have left behind, in works of art or a piece of rock or perhaps just a place name."--"The Wall Street Journal" "Davies resurrects the lands and peoples that were lost in the brutal tide of history. . . . It takes a tremendous feat of empathy to write about countries and peoples that no longer exist. And the amount of information in "Vanished Kingdoms" that will be new to all but the most expert students of European history is staggering. . . . Fascinating facts and insights flutter on its many pages."--"San Francisco Chronicle" "An alternative history of Europe that is . . . densely packed yet commendably accessible, magisterial and uncommonly humane."--"The Boston Globe" "Davies is certainly one of the best British historical writers of the past half century, and every gauntlet he throws down is bejeweled. His literary gifts and his capacity for what he nicely calls 'imaginative sympathy' are stretched to their limits by this challenging project. . . . Yet Davies succeeds, and it is quite a success." --Timothy Snyder, "The Guardian" "Davies is well known as an iconoclast who punctures the comforting myths of countries that history has blessed. . . . "Vanished Kingdoms" gives full rein to his historical imagination and enthusiasms, imparting a powerful sense of places lost in time. All across Europe ghosts will bless him for telling their long-forgotten stories." --"The Economist"

About the Author:

Norman Davies was for many years a professor at the School of Slavonic and East European Studies, London University. He is the author of the acclaimed Vanished Kingdoms and the number one bestseller Europe: A History. His previous books, which include Rising '44, The Isles: A History and God's Playground: A History of Poland, have been translated worldwide. He has researched at universities from Harvard to Hokkaido, and is a Fellow of the British Academy, an Honorary Fellow of St Antony's College, Oxford, and a visiting scholar at Pembroke College, Cambridge.

About this edition

• Publisher: Penguin
• Publication date: 2012
• ISBN 10: 0141048867
• ISBN 13: 9780141048864
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 848