Full name: Vanished Kingdoms: The History of Half-Forgotten Europe

Author: Norman Davies Rank: Rating: Original Rating: Pop Rating: Genres/categories: History, Non Fiction, Historical fiction, Politics Purchase/reserch links: LibraryThing Goodreads Amazon ISBNs: 9781846143380 9780143122951 1846143381 0143122959

'The past is a foreign country' has become a truism, yet we often forget that the past is different from the present in many unfamiliar ways, and historical memory is extraordinarily imperfect. We habitually think of the European past as the history of countries which exist today - France, Germany, Britain, Russia and so on - but often this actually obstructs our view of the past, and blunts our sensitivity to the ever-changing political landscape. 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 - 'the Empire of Aragon' which once dominated the western Mediterranean; the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, for a time the largest country in Europe; the successive kingdoms (and one duchy) of Prussia, much of whose history is now half-remembered at best. This book shows the reader how to peer through the cracks of mainstream history writing and listen to the echoes of lost realms across the centuries. Similar books: Europe by Norman Davies Early Modern Europe by Euan Cameron Dark Continent by Mark Mazower The Vertigo Years by Philipp Blom Central Europe by Lonnie Johnson Postwar by Tony Judt The Struggle for Europe by William I. Hitchcock A History In Fragments by Richard Vinen Europe Divided 1559-1598 by J. H. Elliott 1848 by Mike Rapport The Pursuit of Glory by Tim Blanning Danubia by Simon Winder Savage Continent by Keith Lowe The Great Sea by David Abulafia Vienna, 1814 by David King The Making of America by W. Cleon Skousen Last Call by Daniel Okrent A History of Modern Britain by Andrew Marr Indian Summer by Alex von Tunzelmann Haiti by Laurent Dubois