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An evocative account of fourteen European kingdoms-their rise, maturity, and eventual disappearance. There is something profoundly romantic about lost civilizations. Europe's past is littered with states and kingdoms, large and small, that are scarcely remembered today, and while their names may be unfamiliar -- Aragon, Etruria, the Kingdom of the Two Burgundies -- their stories should change our mental map of the past. We come across forgotten characters and famous ones -- King Arthur and Macbeth, Napoleon and Queen Victoria, right up to Stalin and Gorbachev -- and discover how faulty memory can be, and how much we can glean from these lost empires. Davies peers through the cracks in the mainstream accounts of modern-day states to dazzle us with extraordinary stories of barely remembered pasts, and of the traces they left behind. This is Norman Davies at his best: sweeping narrative history packed with unexpected insights. Vanished Kingdoms will appeal to all fans of unconventional and thought-provoking history, from readers of Niall Ferguson to Jared Diamond. - Publisher.
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Norman Davies' weighty book on the “drastic phenomenon of states that cease to exist” is that wonderful thing - a popular history book that is easy to read and yet makes you think about not only the past, but the possible futures. Essentially a series of essays on various European states that no longer exist, some will be familiar to the reader (USSR, Eire, Burgundy), while others may not (Alt Clud, Tolosa, Sabaudia).
To most people who look at a map of Europe today it must seem as if things have always been this way: France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Poland, the UK etc. But even fairly recently states such as Yugoslavia and the USSR have ceased to exist, leading to the reappearance of countries such as Estonia, Lithuania, Serbia and Montenegro that had been consumed by totalitarian states. Go back further and we see the Free State of Ireland, Galicia or Prussia. Further still and we get the Holy Roman Empire, Burgundy, Aragon and the Commonwealth of Poland-Lithuania. Nothing last forever, countries least of all. This is the central message of Vanished Kingdoms.
I found this a fascinating read, especially when Davies deals with countries I had not heard of before such as Alt Clud (The Kingdom of the Rock) in Dumbarton, or the Grand-Duchy of Lithuania which morphed into the Commonwealth of Poland-Lithuania, once the largest country on mainland Europe. Splitting each chapter into three parts (modern day, history from birth to collapse, aftermath) Davies squeezes a huge amount of information into these essays. But they are never dry. He keeps the prose immensely readable and sketches in the historical figures involved in each story with great skill.
The conclusions he draws will provoke debate, but history tends to prove that nothing is permanent. Britain once had an Empire. As did Austria-Hungary. As did Rome. Now we see processes in motion that will lead to the break up of the United Kingdom. A process which Davies contends started in 1922 with the foundation of the Free State of Ireland. Brexit has only sped up the inevitable.
The map of Europe has been redrawn many times down the centuries, and will be redrawn again, no doubt. Read this book and glory in the Crown of Aragon, the sad tale of the Duchy of Saxe-Coburg Gotha, the rise and fall of the Habsburgs. Highly recommended.