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History, books, Internet, and nationalism – two meetings with Norman Davies

History, books, Internet, and nationalism – two meetings with Norman Davies

Two meetings with Prof. Norman Davies – a lecture delivered on 6 April and an interview for Café Nauka conducted on the next day – provided a great opportunity to learn more about the historian’s perspective: not only on his discipline, but also phenomena that have shaped (and still shape) the world.

The lecture, entitled Accidents in History, was organised jointly by the Jagiellonian University, Copernicus Center and the City of Kraków as part of the Great Questions in Kraków meeting series. As the its title suggests, it tackled the subject of the accidentality of history. Is there some kind of logic behind history? How strongly was it impacted by the unexpected? Or maybe history isn’t written by the victors, but rather by accidents? And what tools can we use to approach the issue of accidents in history? People flocked to the Faculty of Law and Administration assembly hall to watch the author of God’s Playground present his answers to these questions.

‘Could happen’ or ‘had to happen’?

Norman Davies described history as being ruled by accidents, in contrast to the philosophy of determinism. In this perspective, economic determinism in the form of Marxism (historical materialism) is particularly important. This ideology puts particular emphasis on socio-economic conditions which in turn shape everything else, e.g. culture. However, as observed by Prof. Davies, determinism claims to be able to correctly predict the future (‘by looking at the past, we can predict the future’), which is quite a tenuous proposition.

As an illustration, Prof. Davies provided an example from his latest book Beneath Another Sky. A
Global Journey into History
. During one of his journeys in the years 1642–1644, experienced sailor Abel Tasman wanted to avoid the doldrums (calm periods on seas when the winds disappear altogether), so instead of planning a route south from Indonesia, he first sailed west to ‘catch’ favourable winds – southern first, eastern later. However, he accidentally strayed from his course and turned eastward earlier than he initially intended. If not for that, he would’ve passed Tasmania without noticing it, leaving Australia undiscovered for a longer period of time. But was that truly an accident? Maybe we see Tasman’s situation in that way because we don’t know the details. Prof. Davies seemed to have some doubts himself, as he returned to this issue several times.

Facts and fiction

As the edition of the Smart Book of the Year award (a competition for the best science communication book published in Poland, organised by the Jagiellonian University) is drawing near, we asked Prof. Davies what constitutes a ‘smart’ book. In his opinion, that quality is defined by the readers based on the author’s writing style, its clarity and conciseness. It’s particularly important in the case of science books for the general reader.

‘What about the Internet?’, we asked. It turns out that Prof. Davies has a somewhat pessimistic outlook on this issue. Although he believes the Internet offers unprecedented access to information, he is all too aware of its consequences: an unending flood of data bombarding our brains as well as a lack of general knowledge. ‘There are negative consequences to using the Internet. Students know they can check for information anytime they want. They don’t care about framework knowledge. Oftentimes, they look for arguments after they’ve formulated an opinion’.

According to Prof. Davies, easy access to information (the only chance for some to get any kind of education) comes with a price. Indeed, it’s difficult to deny that the respect for framework knowledge – the one needed for complex planning and making breakthroughs in how we see things – is something that needs to be instilled in young people.

The last part of the conversation with Prof. Davies was related to one of our times’ most pressing issues. In Beneath Another Sky…, the author discusses homelands and migrations. We asked him to elaborate on this subject during the interview. ‘Every modern nation travelled to where it now is from someplace else. There’s no such thing as true homeland’, said Prof. Davies. Building a narrative that portrays a community as inhabiting a specific place since the dawn of time is a defensive reaction aimed to answer a real or perceived threat from outsiders. ‘This is not a good way to build relationships with your neighbours’, Prof. Davies added.

Nationalism  only allows a person to possess one identity – Polish, British, Swedish, German, and so on. Based on his own example, Prof. Davies argued that during the course of life one can form multiple national identities: ‘you can be both Welsh and English’. This kind of multidimensional identity is much needed in the European Union, but so far it’s been moderately successful. Will this change in the future? It’s very hard to say.

Original text: Piotr Żabicki, www.nauka.uj.edu.pl

Images:
Map – Australia in 1794, Samuel Dunn, Map of the World Hemispheres, CC BY-SA
Photograph of Norman Davies by Cezary Piwowarski, CC BY-SA, Wikimedia Commons

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