As usual with Davies, an exceedingly accomplished and dauntingly thorough study.
Distinguished British historian Davies (No Simple Victory: World War II in Europe, 1939–1945, etc.) delves into 15 once-great, now-fallen states, from the ancient Visigoths to the Soviet Union.
The author again displays an enormous breadth of knowledge in this selective yet comprehensive historical study of thriving kingdoms that eventually gave way to internal or external forces such as implosion or conquest. Davies is inspired by the epic movement of peoples, starting with the writhing of barbarian hordes that invaded the rotting Roman Empire, namely the Visigoths, who established the Kingdom of Tolosa (modern-day Toulouse) in 418 CE. They lasted for 89 years and spread (into Iberia) a unique Gothic speech, political culture and architecture. These were only one of many interrelated linguistic sub-groups that moved into pockets of Europe, such as the Ostrogoths, Lombards and Burgundians, all now vanished, but leaving in their wake a rich “contaminating” of language, culture and gene pool. Davies delights in recounting the “Kingdom of the Rock,” aka the Old North (Scotland), which was once inhabited by the Ancient Britons (as opposed to the Celts or the Anglo-Saxons), giving forth such legendary notables as St. Patrick, King Arthur and St. Mungo, before being eclipsed by myriad tribes and the Vikings. The author also examines the obscure state of Belarus and its capital Minsk, locus of a dizzying collision of migrating tribes, but he seems overwhelmed by the task of summarizing the complex civilization of Byzantion. Davies dwells instead on Borussia, where the early Prusai, the “People of the Lagoon,” mingled with their invited guests, the Knights of the Teutonic Order, creating a potent socio-military machine of conquest. Other recondite searches wander into Italy, Germany and her rivaling Saxon duchies, ancestral Éire and, finally, Estonia as emblematic of the Soviet Union’s pernicious cultural manipulation. A fine concluding chapter, “How States Die,” offers a robust roundup for the diligent reader.
As usual with Davies, an exceedingly accomplished and dauntingly thorough study.Pub Date: Jan. 5, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-670-02273-1
Page Count: 804
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Oct. 10, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2011
PROFILES
Thus the second most costly war in American history, whose “outcome seemed little short of a miracle.” A sterling account.
A master storyteller’s character-driven account of a storied year in the American Revolution.
Against world systems, economic determinist and other external-cause schools of historical thought, McCullough (John Adams, 2001, etc.) has an old-fashioned fondness for the great- (and not-so-great) man tradition, which may not have much explanatory power but almost always yields better-written books. McCullough opens with a courteous nod to the customary villain in the story of American independence, George III, who turns out to be a pleasant and artistically inclined fellow who relied on poor advice; his Westmoreland, for instance, was a British general named Grant who boasted that with 5,000 soldiers he “could march from one end of the American continent to the other.” Other British officers agitated for peace, even as George wondered why Americans would not understand that to be a British subject was to be free by definition. Against these men stood arrayed a rebel army that was, at the least, unimpressive; McCullough observes that New Englanders, for instance, considered washing clothes to be women’s work and so wore filthy clothes until they rotted, with the result that Burgoyne and company had a point in thinking the Continentals a bunch of ragamuffins. The Americans’ military fortunes were none too good for much of 1776, the year of the Declaration; at the slowly unfolding battle for control over New York, George Washington was moved to despair at the sight of sometimes drunk soldiers running from the enemy and of their officers “who, instead of attending to their duty, had stood gazing like bumpkins” at the spectacle. For a man such as Washington, to be a laughingstock was the supreme insult, but the British were driven by other motives than to irritate the general—not least of them reluctance to give up a rich, fertile and beautiful land that, McCullough notes, was providing the world’s highest standard of living in 1776.
Thus the second most costly war in American history, whose “outcome seemed little short of a miracle.” A sterling account.Pub Date: June 1, 2005
ISBN: 0-7432-2671-2
Page Count: 656
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2005
IN THE NEWS
PERSPECTIVES
PERSPECTIVES
An engrossing, intense, and highly descriptive narrative chronicling the ghastly conditions three pregnant women suffered...
The incredible true story of three Jewish women who survived the Holocaust.
Priska, Rachel, and Anka were married Jewish women in their early 20s when the Nazis took control of Europe. Like millions of other Jews, they were forced to give up their normal lives, all of their belongings, and their homes. Shuttled into ghettos and then off to one of the most notorious camps, Auschwitz II-Birkenau, they suffered through the Nazis’ increasing atrocities. But these three women all held a secret: they were pregnant. They were moved from Auschwitz and ended up in Mauthausen, another notorious death camp. With facing the most horrible conditions imaginable, all three gave birth right before the Allies accepted Germany’s surrender. In this meticulously detailed account, Holden (Haatchi & Little B: The Inspiring True Story of One Boy and His Dog, 2014, etc.) compiles an enormous amount of information from interviews, letters, historical records, and personal visits to the sites where this story unfolded. The graphic history places readers in the moment and provides a sense of the enduring power of love that Priska, Rachel, and Anka had for their unborn children and for the husbands they so desperately hoped to see after the war. Even though it occurred more than 70 years ago, the story’s truth is so chillingly portrayed that it seems as if it could have happened recently. These three women and their infants survived in the face of death, and, Holden writes, “their babies went on to have babies of their own and create a second and then a third generation, all of whom continue to live their lives in defiance of Hitler’s plan to erase them from history and from memory.”
An engrossing, intense, and highly descriptive narrative chronicling the ghastly conditions three pregnant women suffered through at the hands of the Nazis.Pub Date: May 5, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-06-237025-9
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: March 28, 2015
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
