What the Reviews said about 'Lifelong Learning' by Longworth and Davies 'An excellent book in which the authors define Lifelong Learning and describe its far-reaching implications for every organisation, nation and individual throughout the world' (Times Educational Supplement) 'This topical and readable book explains the background to the movement towards lifelong learning and describes its implications for the workplace, the university, the school and the individual' (Chartered Secretary) 'As a descriptive model of how learning can improve quality of life and counteract bigotry while also enhancing national economies, the message is unimpeachable' (Aslib book guide) 'The book very effectively develops all the issues that influence the development of a culture of Lifelong Learning' (Times Educational Supplement) 'Longworth and Davies clarify concepts, ideas and practices relating to the development of individual human potential which will affect the future of all institutions and nations world-wide' (Workers Educational Association Bulletin) 'A well-written, ideas-packed and scholarly text on its theme' (Biochemical Education) ..an accessible and up to date summary. The book is particularly valuable for two reasons. a) it places lifelong learning in the context of other major world trends in business and industry and b) it provides some challenging insights which make the reader pause for thought' (People Management) 'The book provides a wealth of ideas on how to implement lifelong learning. There are excellent Case Histories' (Times Educational Supplement) Lifelong Learning as here described is not a didactic technique. Rather it is an attitude, a way of life, a process, a habit of mind and an environment. Its concern is with meaningful knowledge, the kind that leads to understanding and insight ...it should be read by those involved in all aspects of education. local and national government, professional organisations, business and industry and individuals concerned about the future well-being and development of their communities' (Biochemical Education) ...full of ideas, initiatives, suggestions, and programmes to promote learning by individuals, in institutions, organisations and communities' (RSA Journal) '...a stimulating tour of lifelong learning, backed up by an agenda for action (People Management) This is an exciting and unusual book' (Biochemical Education) 'Lifelong Learning is especially appropriate for opinion framers, decision makers and those responsible for the development of organisations and people. It provides countless practical ideas, challenges, and strategies for learning and helping' (American Council on Education) 'I found this book tremendously stimulating' (Teaching in Higher Education) 'Lifelong Learning is extremely readable and timely and presents an abundance of ideas, knowledge and suggestions for learning organisations and the general reader' (Times Educational Supplement) 'It explains a broad range of issues in a pleasingly straightforward way' (People Management) Here indeed is food for thought and action by university administrators, their faculties and their students.' (Biochemical Education) 'Lifelong Learning should be read by anyone who wants to understand a movement which will have universal implications' (Training Tomorrow) 'I finished the book feeling that I now understood the concept of lifelong learning' (Teaching in Higher Education) 'Apart from the quality of the arguments and the persuasive line of reasoning, it is also a damn good read! (Pro-Vice Chancellor, University of Sunderland) 'We have acquired a copy of 'Lifelong Learning', which has already helped to inform our thinking' (UK Department for Education and Employment) 'I am pleased to recommend this book as essential reading for all Americans' (American Council on Education) 'I bought this book as essential reading for all my advisory group' (CEO, Norfolk and Waveney TEC) 'This book is both inspired and inspiring' (Cooperative News 1998)

Few people are aware of the war described by Norman Davies. In 1920, the Polish David defeated the Soviet Goliath. This, at very least, spared Eastern Europe from Communism for 25 years. Possibly, Communism would have gone on to global conquest had it not been for the outcome of this battle.

I read this book in college as part of one of my history papers. Being 2nd generation Polish, it was important to read the full story of the genocide in Poland, and that it was not just limited to the Jews. Lucas does a fine job of showing all aspects of life under occupation, and that ALL Poles suffered, regardless of religion, gender, occupation, etc. Poland lost 15-20% of her population during the war, the most of any country, and they came from all walks of life. I was glad to see somebody finally wrote a boook about the "forgotten" millions who were murdered simply because they were born Polish. This is a must read for anyone interested in Poland or European history.

This book is exactly what it advertises - a history of Poland while under German occupation. After years of hearing only about the anti-Semitism of Poles, and their willingness to coldly turn in their Jewish neighbors, it is refreshing to read of what the majority of the country took part in. The tales of Polish resistance are truly remarkable and valuable for anyone interested in the truth of WWII.

Lukas never makes an attempt to minimize the Jewish experience in this book; he only brings attention to the fact that five million non-Jews were also exterminated, and for Hitler, as soon as Europe was free of Jews, the Slavs were next. I found it a very valuable, scholarly read.

This second edition of the book contains new chapters. One of them contains a list of Polish gentiles, murdered by the German occupants, while attempting to assist Jews (Poland was one of the only countries where the death penalty was handed out by the Nazis to anyone who gave the slightest assistance to the Jews). Of course, this list is but a drop in the bucket: The actual number of Polish gentiles strongly assisting Polish Jews, but caught and slain by the Germans for helping Jews, is estimated to be as high as 50,000.

The second new chapter is a discussion of Zegota: A clandestine Polish underground organization for assisting Jews. At its height, it consisted of tens of thousands of Polish gentiles in German-occupied Warsaw alone--all working under the threat of death if caught.

Lukas also discusses Polish collaboration with the Nazis, but shows that, contrary to much popular Holocaust material, this level of collaboration was much smaller than those of most other German-occupied European nations, and was also dwarfed by the number of Poles who assisted the Jews.

Earlier, Lukas documents how 3 million Polish gentiles were murdered by the Germans during World War II. This is very rarely mentioned in most Holocaust materials. Also included is discussion of the cultural genocide of Poland: the systematic, barbaric German practice of systematically destroying visible traces of Polish culture (monuments, libraries, museums, etc.). If you are one raised on the belief that only Jews suffered in the hands of the Nazis, you are in for a shock when you read this excellent book.

Norman Davies has a great knack for fantastic subjects. What can be better than a microhistory of Central Europe on an example of a city that was Czech, Polish, Czech, Austrian, German and now is Polish! Also Wroclaw/Breslau happens to be my home town and it was a great place to live in the 70's with just about everybody an immigrant, an America in miniature under communist rule.

Norman Davies also has a great knack for writing his books assuming that you already know a lot of history. Sometimes I do not and he leaves me there high and dry grasping for facts.

This book gives you a continuity in European history where everything changes and still stays the same.

Norman Davies writes incredible books. The detail is overwhelming. This could be an outstanding text for someone wanting to learn European history. It is a volume for tourists to read before visiting Poland and Wroclaw.

With God's Playground Davies has proven himself to be one of the greatest historians, historical writers, and historical theorists that the English language has known. Davies combines the narrative and thematic approaches to achieve a historical study that provides a chronology of events as well as an understanding of deeper changes and cultural contexts. Since you are reading this in the hopes that it will help you decide to buy the book, let me explain how Davies does this. First, he provides a chapter that is written in the traditional narrative style from n-date to x-date. Then he follows that up with several chapters on each facet of Polish life and how that developed from n-date to x-date. Typically, he uses political, military, economic, religious, and cultural (the arts, etc.) as his primary themes. By using this technique Davies is able to impart much more knowledge and much deeper understanding to his readers. Finally, these two volumes also contain some of the best and most useful maps I have encountered in any history book. The maps alone are worth the price of the book, and anyone teaching a European history course will find them to be invaluable in helping students understand Eastern Europe.

One of the central theses in Davies' history of Poland up to 1795 is that it, rather than France, Britain or the Holy Roman Empire could lay claim to the true predecessor of American democracy. This may seem a stretch, but the institutions of the great Polish Commonwealth - an elective monarchy, decentralization, a powerful civic assembly - were closer to the Athenian ideal of democracy than any other medieval or rennaisance kingdoms. Poland also produced some of the great intellectuals of those eras - Copernicus standing out as the prime example. Though the Polish constitution had its eccentricities: for instance, the kingdom imported its sovereigns from all corners of Europe (the Valois of France, the Vasas of Sweden and later the dukes of Saxony), the Polish-Lithuanian state became the most powerful military and political force in Eastern Europe for the better part of the fifteenth to seventeenth centuries, only to be dismembered in the eighteenth. This is an academic book, volume 1 of 2, and readers who find the 500+ page length daunting might be better off with the one-volume abridgement. This longer volume, however, is rewarding, because it has a wonderful narrative arc: origins, rise, and downfall, with the tragic eighteenth century partitions in the final chapters suggestive of worse twentieth century partitions to come. There are also personal anecdotes, such as the story of King Sigismund, who died of an overdose of gherkins, or poor Queen Jadwiga, forced to abandon her teenage sweetheart in order to marry pagan King Jagiellon of Lithania, a man twice her age who went to the altar only moments after his baptism.

Excellent book. Few years back Norman Davies received an honorary diploma from the Jagiellonian University in Krakow for his outstanding achievements. This book was recognized as a masterpiece, translated into Polish, and is currently used by undergraduate and graduate students in Poland.

I highly recommend it.

Europe is a big book about a big subject. European history is to many Americans an impenetrable subject- much too much information with little idea as to how it all fits together. Europe is an attempt to fill that void, which it tries and yet ultimately fails to succeed.

The main problem is author Davies Poland-centric view of European history. Poland is an interesting land with a rich history, fair enough. Yet, time and again the pages of Europe keep returning to this land of people continually invaded and conquered. What is happening in Spain during the Inquisition? In England during the Magna Carta? Surely not anything of consequence compared to the events in Poland!

Another failure of the book is its sidebars, an excellent innovation for conveying information to the reader on smaller, less consequential facets of history. Yet the sidebars are almost all uniformly dull, telling the reader little of interest.

No doubt an attempt to follow in the footsteps of other great historians, Davies aims high and comes up short. The history of Europe is long and involves much to tell. Too bad this book, for all of its length, never really tells us anything.

Norman Davies has produced a first-rate history of Europe, the most outstanding characteristic of which is its very inclusiveness. The focus of most traditional histories of Europe lies mainly on the western nations of Europe - France, Britain, Germany, Italy, Spain. Davies, the author of several works on the history of Poland, has managed to create an historical overview of Europe that encompasses all the nation of this most heterogenous of regions. While one may quibble on fine detail (as a Dane, I naturally looked for fault in the material on Denmark - and found a few), the errors remain trifling and the work itself falls into the category of "must-read" history. The sheer volume of data one must wade through to write convincingly on European history ensures that no work of this character will ever meet with the approval of all readers, however, even if one does not agree with Davies on all points, this book is a solid achievement, massive and well-crafted. I heartily recommend this history of Europe.

Davies' book succeeds where so many others do not. A rare mix of strong readability, factual information presentation, and interest-holding additions to the text (in the form of textual "capsules" which correlate with the main text), the book is more than enough to hold the interest of nearly anyone interested in European history. Any lay historian should consider this book for purchase. It is definitely worth it, also, to purchase the hardback edition. Although somewhat lengthy, you'll probably find that, like me, the book is in no way intimidating: you can actualy enter the text at any point and just start from there. Even reading the capsules alone can stimulate an interest in all types of derivative studies. The inclusion of a large number of items in an "historical compendium" in the back of the book is simply fascinating. This portion of the book alone contains a wealth of information. If it took Davies' 20 years to get this book together, it is readily apparent upon reading it why that was so. A great accomplishment in its own right.

This is an academic history of wales, published as a series from Oxford. But it covers most of the history and reveals a lot of new facts. It is highly indebted to John Edward Lloyd, but in this field who isn't? Davies advances the scholarship since Lloyd greatly.

This is a great book (and series) for anyone who wants to a good introduction to Welsh history. Although there have been a few better, there have not been many.

But sociology and psychology as well. I have been trying to educate myself in the area of European History over the course of the last year or so. As an introduction, I bought "Europe: A History" by Davies. After that overview, I have acquired other titles that focus on specific topics on European history such as "Heart of Europe: A Short History of Poland." As a novice, I have no qualifications to challenge the history. I have a problem with the style. Mr. Davies, perhaps as someone who "feels" history, spends a great deal of effort addressing the sociological and psychological consequences of the various historical events. If Mr. Davies were to describe a car accident, he would include descriptions of how the passengers and by-standers felt and what it was that might have caused them to do what they did next. For me, I would rather have the facts reported as if they were a newspaper article. Nevertheless, I would recommend this book for the factual information.

Davies ruffled feathers of academics especially with his perspective on the fate of Jews in Poland during WW II. Poles often are presumed guilty of "not doing enough" to help Jews escape the Nazis. Davies argues that Poles were also in need of help and not in any position to offer others much help. His argument conflicted with views generally held by Jewish intellectuals and others and he had claimed that their influence had him removed from a proposed teaching position at a university. In any case, the book should be read as a serious contribution to understanding Polish history, and not as a polemical threat to anybody's "ironclad" notions.

I learned more about history of Poland then from any history lessons. Especially I apreciate history of Polish Jews and origins of Polish Nation.

Norman Davies, a distinguished Historian who has written several books on European history (including the brilliant 'History of Europe' volume) is surprisingly dissapointing in this huge tome on the history of what Davies deems 'The Isles.'

Davies manages to capture the history of the British Isles with enough accuracy to pass the grade. But nowhere to be seen is the lively, curious and intelligent writing style which made the 'History of Europe' so readable, except perhaps in his presentation of the Celtic peoples. Davies seems to spend far too much time on obscure figures and trivialities without indulging in the more important aspects of British history. He writes in immense detail, for example, about the history of various English and Scottish monarchs, but gives other equally, if not more, important events such as the Industrial revolution scant and superficial treatment.

The book certainly could have used some judicious editing and a much shorter length (about 5-600 pages), and better judgement on the part of the author on what to include and what to reject on grounds of relevance. It is certainly a surprisingly bland effort from an otherwise wonderful writer on European history.

Mr Davies' book is an excellent introduction to the history of the British Isles. The author is at pains to use terms like "British" and "English" only in their proper contexts, and is so careful to avoid anachronism that he refers to historical figures and places only by the names current at the time. King William I, for example, is "Guillaume" in the book. The separate and inter-dependent histories of England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales are treated in depth. Unfortunately, the book is marred by several egregious errors of fact; notably the assertion on page 905 (hardback) that the Irish civil war was won by Eamon de Valera's anti-treaty forces. The edition I read also suffered from a lack of proofreading that showed up on almost every page. The concluding chapter on the "Post-Imperial Isles" consists of a series of essays documenting various strands of modern society. These essays are very strongly informed by events of the late 1990s and are somewhat out of keeping with the overall scope of the work. All in all however, for the tolerant reader this book is a most enjoyable route to a solid knowledge of British history.

The British Isles are a unique geographical location in the world, having been provided by nature with advantages and problems unique in the world, and peopled by various groups who have worked together and against one another for domination of the Isles. Only for the briefest periods in history did the Isles truly represent a unified group, and even these times were more of an appearance of unity rather than actual unification.

Norman Davies, author of the critically acclaimed 'Europe: A History', has put together an interesting history of the British Isles, trying to portray them as a group that, while lacking unity, should be at least addressed as a unified group, always influencing and co-dependent upon each other.

Davies is rather modest in his self-description of the book:

'This book necessarily presents a very personal view of history. Indeed, by some academic standards, it may well be judged thoroughly unsound. As I wrote in relation to a previous work, it presents the past 'seen through one pair of eyes, filtered by one brain, and recorded by one pen'. It has been assembled by an author who, though being a British citizen and a professional historian, has no special expertise in the British historical field.'

Davies self-criticism is really far too strongly expressed here, for he does an admirably thorough job at documentation, reporting, and theorising. Taking a cue from other historians who worry about the increasing lack of historical knowledge of the general public coupled with the increasing specialisation which causes people to lose proper perspective, Davies has put together a comprehensive history of the British Isles which strives to escape at least some of the problems of previous histories.

For instance, it has only been within the last generation that 'English History' has come to be seen as an inaccurate term for discussion of the affairs of all the Isles, or even for the history of the largest island, Great Britain. To this day, anomalies exist that confuse the status of the islands (all cars in the United Kingdom, for instance, carry the plate coding GB, even those cars in Northern Ireland, part of the United Kingdom that is not part of Great Britain, etc.). Davies takes great care to distinguish English from Scot from Pict from Irish from British, which has a meaning close to the commonly-used term for only the most ancient and the most modern British events.

This does, I must confess, occasionally get in the way of the narrative history. While explaining his reasoning up front in the introduction or preface makes sense, the constant referring to this state of affairs interrupts the flow of the narrative a bit more than it perhaps should.

Davies takes a long-term approach, starting with prehistorical evidence for inhabitation of the areas which are now the British Isles (which used to be connected to the mainland), getting into real substance with the arrival of the Celts in the British Isles (the longest-tenured remaining people in the Isles, pushed to the periphery but still influential in many ways), which for a period of six to seven centuries may have the been the longest period of unity and stability the Isles have ever, or will ever, know. However, even these groups were not unified in a political sense, and tribal warfare was common on all the main islands among competing groups.

Davies proceeds to explore the history of the British Isles under the Romans, during the Germanic invasion/migrations, during the Norse/Viking invasions/raids, during the Norman conquest, and then to the period of English hegemony. The period of English hegemony consists of three primary period: the 'Three Kingdoms' period (England, Ireland, and Scotland); the Union period (which various includes Ireland in union with a unified England and Scotland), and the post-Imperial time, which has seen an increasing move toward devolution, beginning with Irish independence and continuing toward separate parliaments for the 'nations'.

'In all but name, therefore, the policy of devolution had been accepted by the Thatcher government in the cultural and educational sphere many years before it was adopted in the constitutional sphere by 'New Labour'. The cumulative effects were bound to be far-reaching. The Scots and the Welsh, and to some extent the Northern Irish, were given a strong injection not only of self-esteem but also of separation.'

Davies tackles difficult questions and problems that are not typical of standard histories, especially where speculation into the possible future of the British Isles is concerned. As the United Kingdom has never been a nation-state in the same sense as continental nations, what does this mean for the future of the Union? Will the British Isles once again become a collection of peoples, owing more allegiance to the broader, historically-newly forming European Union than toward each other politically, while still maintaining trade and social ties that are incredibly strong? Only time will tell.

A biased history, to be sure, but a very unique insight, and well worth reading for a broader perspective on the history of the peoples of the British Isles than most 'British history' or 'English history' books will give.