|
|||||||||
Perfect Partner
Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought
Heart of Europe: The Past in Poland's Present by Norman Davies  (3)
£8.39
|
Europe at War 1939-1945: No Simple Victory by Norman Davies (11)
£6.99
|
White Eagle, Red Star: The Polish-Soviet War, 1919-20 by Norman Davies (3)
£10.49
|
Europe East and West by Norman Davies  (1)
£10.49
|
Rising '44: The Battle for Warsaw by Norman Davies (17)
£6.99
|
Product details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
| Customers Viewing This Page May Be Interested in These Sponsored Links (What is this?) |
Before the popular success of his two general histories, Europe: A History, and The Isles, Norman Davies was best known as a specialist on the history of Poland. His 1981 two-volume God's Playground remains the best and most searching study in English of the fluctuating fortunes of that country. Microcosm, written in collaboration with his researcher Roger Moorhouse, is an in-depth account of a city now in Poland and presently called Wroclaw. The city has only been Polish since the Second World War. Before that it was the very German city of Breslau. And before that it was, at various times, part of the kingdom of Bohemia, the Hapsburg Empire and the Prussia of Frederick the Great. In different centuries it has been known as Wrotizla, as Wretslaw, as Presslaw and as Bresslau. Its Polish, German and Jewish communities intermingled to produce both a unique city and one that reflected and embodied all the different currents that have flowed together over a millennium to create the story of Central Europe.
Davies and Moorhouse intend their account of what is today Wroclaw to illustrate the history of one particular city but also to illuminate the general history of Central Europe through this one microcosm. They don't always succeed in their aim. At times the task of yoking together the minutiae of the city's life with its place in a broader history seems an impossible one. It is likely that the general reader will not be as interested in, say, lists of great alumni of Breslau's 19th-century university, as he or she will be in the narrative of Breslau in World War II. The book works best for the general reader when it most justifies its title; it works much less well when it seems most like some kind of official city history.--Nick Rennison
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Book Description
Description The story of Central Europe is anything but simple: as a result of invasions and resettlements, the people of Central Europe have witnessed a profusion of languages, cultures, religions and nationalities. The two most important waves of settlement came from the Germans and the Slavs, but Central Europe also became the great haven for Jews. In the centuries when Jewish people were persecuted, they naturally congregated in the middle, and the Jewishness of Central Europe has been one of its defining features. But most significantly in its recent history, Central Europe has been subjected to 50 years of Fascism and Communism in succession. In order to present a portrait of Central Europe, from AD 1000 to the present, Norman Davies and Roger Moorhouse study the history of one of its main cities – Breslau. Breslau, the traditional capital of Silesia, was one of the great commercial cities of medieval Europe. It later became the second city of the kingdom of Bohemia, a major city of the Hapsburg lands, and a Residenzstadt of the kingdom of Prussia. The third largest German city of the mid-nineteenth century, Breslau’s population reached one million in 1945. But in May 1945 the city of Breslau was annihilated by the Soviet Red Army. Much of it was destroyed, thousands of its inhabitants were killed. Breslau surrendered four days after Berlin and was thus the last Fortress of the Reich to fall, and, indeed, one of the very last areas in Germany to surrender. Transferred to Poland after the war, the city has risen from the ruins of the war and is once again a thriving economic and cultural centre of the region. The history of Silesia’s main city embodies all the experiences which have made Central Europe what it is – the rich mixture of nationalities and cultures; the German settlement and the reflux of the Slavs; a Jewish presence of exceptional distinction; a turbulent succession of Imperial rulers; and the shattering exposure to both Nazis and Stalinists. In short, it is a Central European microcosm.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
See all Product Description
