In this enjoyable and idiosyncratic historical excursion, Norman Davies discusses 15 European states of the past, widely varying in character. Three of them – the Byzantine Empire, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Soviet Union – were great empires which looked as if they would last for ever; but they all disappeared, the first gradually over centuries, the last almost overnight. Another three – Aragon, Prussia and Savoy – spearheaded the respective ‘reunifications’ of Spain, Germany and Italy, which eventually subsumed them. Three of them were short-lived entities which might be described as ‘Ruritanian’: the Napoleonic Kingdom of Etruria, the Kingdom of Montenegro and the ‘Republic of Ruthenia’, which existed for one day in March 1939. Two of them belong to early medieval history, the Visigothic Kingdom of Toulouse, which ruled over southern France and Spain in the fifth and sixth centuries and the British Kingdom of Strathclyde, which held sway between the Solway and the Clyde from the sixth to the 11th centuries: few today may have heard of them but had they not both been defeated in war France and Scotland might never have appeared on the map as we know them today.  

One chapter discusses Burgundy, a ‘moveable feast’ of a state hovering between modern France and Germany, which existed in no less than 15 different incarnations between the fifth and 18th centuries. Another deals with the Kingdom of Galicia, the name given to that part of historic Poland ruled by Austria from 1773 to 1918, which was remarkable for its ethnic mix of Poles, Ukrainians, Jews and Germans; since its demise the Germans have been driven out, the Jews exterminated and the Poles expelled from their ancient city of Lvov. From the petty German monarchies which ended in 1918, Davies selects the Duchy of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, from whose house (via Prince Albert) the British royal family is descended: after 1945, Coburg found itself in West Germany and Gotha in the Communist East. Finally he discusses the end of British rule in Ireland, suggesting that it may presage the disintegration of what remains of the United Kingdom.

In his Introduction, Davies observes that published history tends to concentrate on states which still exist, whereas it is important that we should also study states which are now extinct, if only to remind ourselves of the transience of things. However it is somewhat disingenuous to present this volume as a survey of states which flourished and then died. Galicia was not really a ‘state’ in the sense of an independent entity; Ruthenia never got off the ground; Montenegro was snuffed out in 1918 only to return to life in 2006; and observing Putin’s Russia it is difficult to accept Davies’ contention that the USSR ‘vanished’, leaving not a wrack behind. One suspects that his publishers were somewhat alarmed to be presented with such a heterogenous collection of essays and insisted he come up with a ‘theme’. A stronger theme is that even most educated people have little conception of the historical origins of their native localities. Few inhabitants of modern Glasgow have heard of the Strathclyde Kingdom which founded their city; most citizens of Belarus are blissfully unaware of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania of which their land was part for five centuries; even in Kaliningrad (ex-Königsberg), which has only been Russian since 1945, no one seems to know about Prussia. Davies draws striking contrasts between the present and the historical landscape and quotes hilariously from guidebooks and Internet sites to show the extent of (sometimes wilful) ignorance.

In fact this book does not need a theme; its delight is in its discursiveness. Davies ranges far and wide, giving each chapter its own special thought-provoking point. In the case of Burgundy it is the magic of a name: ‘Burgundy’ has meant so many things at different times and places that few who mention it know what they are talking about. In the case of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, it is the efforts (humorously described) of the House of Windsor to disguise its German origins. In the case of Ruthenia, it is the pathos of a small nation that failed to realise its aspirations, while an ignorant West dismissed it as ‘quaint’. In the case of Lithuania it is the attempt to locate and reassemble the scattered archives of a great state two centuries after its disappearance.  

Perhaps this book offers too rich a diet of dynastic politics, of which the author cannot have enough. He sometimes shows his prejudices (pro-Polish, anti-Russian, pro-EU, anti-‘British’). But by and large this is a worthy companion volume to Europe: A History and The Isles; like those marvellous works it combines the broad sweep with the telling detail, entertains with quirks and paradoxes and constantly reminds the reader that nothing is inevitable and history must not be read backwards.

Michael Bloch is author of James Lees-Milne: The Life (John Murray).