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Vanished Kingdoms: The Rise and Fall of States and Nations Paperback – November 27, 2012

by Norman Davies (Author)

92 customer reviews

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From the bestselling author of Europe: A History comes a uniquely ambitious masterpiece that will thrill fans of lost civilizations

While Germany, Italy, France, and England dominate our conceptions of Europe, these modern states are relatively recent constructs. In this brilliant work of historical reconstruction, Norman Davies brings back to life the long-forgotten empire of Aragon, which once controlled the Western Mediterranean; the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, once the largest country in Europe, and the Kingdom of the Rock, founded by ancient Britons when neither England nor Scotland existed. In the tradition of Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel, Davies subverts our established view of the past and urges us to reconsider the impetus for the rise and fall of nations.

Vanished Kingdoms: The Rise and Fall of States and Nations

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Product Details

Paperback: 848 pages
Publisher: Penguin Books; Reprint edition (November 27, 2012)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0143122959
ISBN-13: 978-0143122951
Product Dimensions: 6 x 1.4 x 9 inches
Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (92 customer reviews)
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #69,632 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #895 in Books > History > Europe

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Customer Reviews

3.8 out of 5 stars

5 star		41%
4 star		26%
3 star		17%
2 star		7%
1 star		9%

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143 of 151 people found the following review helpful

Many intriguing accounts of forgotten states

By Graham on January 16, 2012

Format: Hardcover

This is an imposing tome, with 750 pages of tightly written history of 15 of Europe's (mostly) smaller states, many of which have now entirely vanished, both from maps and from popular memory.

One of Prof Davies' main themes is the uncertainty of nations. It is easy to think of today's European states as the natural sub-units of the continent. But many other forgotten states might have seemed just as natural, if they had only been a little luckier. Another pattern that struck me is the multi-ethnic nature of many of Davies' states. They were often welded together from a mix of peoples, overlapping in the same physical terrain, but willing to live together in some varying degree of harmony.

The states covered are Visigothic Tolosa, ancient British Strathclyde, the many Kingdoms of Burgundy, Aragon, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, Byzantium (very briefly), Prussia, the lands of the House of Savoy, Galicia, the Napoleonic Kingdom of Etruria, Saxe-Coburg (birthplace of Prince Albert), Montenegro (lost and reborn), Carpatho-Ukraine (a Republic for but a day), Eire (a newborn state), and last but not least the USSR (freshly and mysteriously vanished). By winding up on the USSR, Davies takes the opportunity to reflect on the inevitability of change. "Nothing lasts forever" and Davies argues that while today's major states may seem permanent, they too will eventually fade, or change into very different forms.

The book has both strengths and weaknesses. Among the strengths are thorough histories of various forgotten states, including many fascinating nuggets of history, greed, intrigue and folly.Read more ›

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80 of 91 people found the following review helpful

thorough and magisterial

By Tony Williams on January 12, 2012

Format: Hardcover Verified Purchase

For a reader of what can be called tertiary historical works (so those written by someone who studies the source documents and most usually in a specific field and who also understands the process by which secondary works come about) I am always aware of what is possibly being left out because it doesn't quite fit onto the overall message of the book. Since I am unlikely to ever have the time or inclination to, for example, learn to read Polish or Lithuanian documents to ensure that there are no glaring lacunae, Dr Davis's book gives me great comfort and the assurance that inconvenient facts are included, and the result is a provocative, readable and sad work. Sad, because so many countries that seemed to be not bad places to live (compared to others of their time) vanish into history, forgotten by all but a few.

He is passionate about Poland-Lithuania, and the sections that involve this are superb. I would have greatly enjoyed an expanded section on Byzantium, but as he points out, that could take many volumes, and to a certain extent, has been covered, if in a fashion that while amusing is somewhat out of fashion today.

This is a great book.

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37 of 42 people found the following review helpful

Wonderful Essays on Forgotten Europe

By S. Heminger on January 18, 2012

Format: Hardcover Verified Purchase

The historical memory of nations has a great deal to do with their position amongst contemporaries at the time of their existence. Thus the stories of Rome, Greece and Great Britain are well chronicled. In fact the historiography seems to grow by the week of these great nations and empires. In contrast however, nations that had an admittedly mediocre history, or were perhaps consumed by these other great nations have largely disappeared from the historical picture. A current analogy might be the manner with which we tend to forget mediocre performing professional athletes and the astronauts after Neil Armstrong to walk on the moon. This is the type of issue that Norman Davies sees in the current state of history of Europe,however and he has set about to remedy, at least in small part, this glaring gap in the historical record of Europe with the writing of `Vanished Kingdoms'. In so doing he has striven to "both highlight the contrast between times present and past and to explore the workings of historical memory"(9). What's more is that, although left unstated, this work sets out to collect a series of histories that might never be able to be read by the layperson due to the highly specialized nature of the research, as it currently exists. What has resulted is a fantastic work of history and although it is some 739 pp in length, is hardly a ponderous read.

The book is organized into 15 essays covering such little known nations and kingdoms as Alt Clud, Tolosa and Etruria. Each chapter is further organized into three sections covering, in order: a sketch of some geographical area as it exists now within the onetime borders of a particular kingdom, a narrative of the particular nation and lastly, the current state of historiography of the kingdom/nation.Read more ›

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124 of 161 people found the following review helpful

Part Travelogue, Part History, Part Pedantic Bore

By Greg Polansky on January 13, 2012

Format: Kindle Edition Verified Purchase

Davies' thesis is that because modern historians write from the perspective of successful states, we often forget about all the states that didn't make it to the twenty-first century. Great thesis and it caused me to preorder this book. He then goes on to discuss 15 states that no longer appear on the map. In addition, each chapter is divided into roughly three sections - a travelogue of the present area, some history of the area, and a description of the scholarship on the area. It is the third part that often presents the problems for me.

I think that if it were better written, the third part could be great. But half the time Davies comes across as curmudgeonly, acting as if he knows better than all the other historians. For example, at the end of the chapter on Burgundy, he goes on. And on. And on about how his description of the history of Burgundy is the only complete one while everyone else is not. And then we are subjected to descriptions of encyclopedias and entries in search engines.

The other main problem is that the descriptions of history read like a medieval history. There is precious little analysis - basically it reads like an encyclopedia entry itself. And that's a problem for me because the idea behind the book is really interesting. Perhaps Davies would have better availed himself of the material if he had written about half the places but with double the information. Then a chapter like the one on Byzantion (The Byzantine Empire) would not be the biggest joke of the book due to its extreme shortness. He should have just left it out.

I would say to those considering reading this book to treat it as Lonely Planet: Lost Kingdoms rather than a serious scholarly history.

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Most Recent Customer Reviews

Interesting look at a variety of places

Each chapter in the book looks at one former state in Europe. The opening to each is set in the modern day, before going into details on the specific state, and finishing with an... Read more

Published 2 days ago by Matthew Lerner

Can we turn Davies into a travel writer?

Vanished is exhaustively long and exquisitely thorough, representing what is probably a vanishing tradition in writing. Read more

Published 2 months ago by A Forest Fan

The concept of Vanished Kingdoms is interesting and Normal Davies ...

The concept of Vanished Kingdoms is interesting and Normal Davies is steeped in knowledge and research. Read more

Published 3 months ago by GFX

They went where? He's the Duke of What?

The real answers to that fuzzy 'huh?' that come up when reading historical fiction and a character refers to a country or locale that you can't quite place. Read more

Published 4 months ago by Gold Canyon Gal

A Grand Duchy with Kings

I bought this book largely for Davies' chapter on the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, which he belittling entitles Litva: A Grand Duchy with Kings. Read more

Published 5 months ago by James Ferguson

New Information

As a history buff, I enjoy the insights and the new information the authors shares with us. Good book

Published 6 months ago by Certified FED

I wasn't as blown away by this as I hoped ...

I wasn't as blown away by this as I hoped to be. I think I expected a more cohesive story of how European kingdoms, important in their day, were lost to history, because they have... Read more

Published 6 months ago by Mariners' Fan

Only half the story

I was excited to pick up Vanished Kingdoms, as I generally am interested in the rise and fall of political entities, and how they have often unseen impacts on the political... Read more

Published 7 months ago by P. Geyer

Five Stars

Great book!

Published 7 months ago by L K

thoughtful and enlightening

Concise and enlightening book on the various kingdoms which were just names before this book. Well written and concise in the descriptions of each various Kingdom. Read more

Published 8 months ago by Mick Maye

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