Norman Davies

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

“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.”

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

“Poland was the racial laboratory of the Nazis. This is where they started to put their abhorrent theories into practice.”

“In essence, the tragedy of the Warsaw Rising resulted from a systemic breakdown of the Grand Alliance.”

“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.”

“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.”

“At the end of the Roman Empire, in the Byzantine period, the empire shrinks and shrinks until it consists of one city, Constantinople, and the Ottoman Turks can encircle it.”

“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.”

“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.”

“Under Lenin, hardly less than under Stalin, historians harbored critical opinions at their peril. The writing, let alone the publication, of political diaries was virtually impossible.”

“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.”

“Nothing stands still. Everything is moving in some direction or another.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

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

“I do belong to the club which doesn't see a distinction between academic history and popular history.”

“None of Europe's modern nations are genuinely native.”

“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.”