Beneath Another Sky

Where have the people in any particular place actually come from? What are the historical complexities in any particular place? This evocative historical journey around the world shows us.After decades of writing about European history, Norman Davies embarked upon an extended journey that took him round the world. He aimed to test his powers of observation, but equally to encounter history in a new way. Beneath Another Sky is partly a historian's travelogue, partly a highly engaging exploration of events and personalities that have fashioned today's world.Davies's circumnavigation takes him to Baku, the Emirates, India, Malaysia, Mauritius, Tasmania, Tahiti, Texas, Madeira and many places in between. At every stop, he not only describes the current scene but also excavates the layers of accumulated experience that underpin the present. He tramps round ancient temples, delves into the fate of indigenous peoples, uncovers the Nazi origins of Frankfurt airport and lectures on imperialism in a desert oasis. 'Everything has its history', he writes, 'including the history of finding one's way or of getting lost.' As always, Norman Davies watches the historical horizon as well as what is close at hand, and brilliantly complicates our view of the past.

“A book of wonders ... He writes history like nobody else. He thinks like nobody else. He is a one-man refutation of the old idea that history is always written by the victors. He writes from a perspective that certainly takes in the victors, but also the foolish, the wicked, the marginal, the defeated, the disappeared and the forgotten. He sees the world as a whole, with its limitless fund of stories. He sees the accidental nature of human lives and the infinite variety of the delusions by which we survive--Bryan Appleyard, Sunday Times If you are someone, or know someone, who is romanced by stamps, or maps, or names, or journeys, or plaques - someone whose head is always popping up from the papers or a Radio 4 documentary with the words "did you know?" then I recommend this book to you. I loved it. It deserves a shelf of its own--David Aaronovitch, The Times A rich, thought-stirring and deeply engaging blend of travelogue, memoir and historical investigation--John Gray, New Statesman”

If you are someone, or know someone, who is romanced by stamps, or maps, or names, or journeys, or plaques - someone whose head is always popping up from the papers or a Radio 4 documentary with the words "did you know?" then I recommend this book to you. I loved it. It deserves a shelf of its own -- David Aaronovitch The Times
A rich, thought-stirring and deeply engaging blend of travelogue, memoir and historical investigation -- John Gray New Statesman
A performance that resists easy compartmentalisation ... This is clever and informative entertainment. -- Joad Raymond BBC History Magazine

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.

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