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wrote that the book has "something of an epic quality", and that it manages to go beyond traditional German versus Polish rivalry in the historiography concerning the city. Furthermore
Zawadzki praised the work for containing material of interest both for the specialist historians as well as the lay
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as a microcosm of the history of central Europe as a whole. To this end, it is suggested that the city bears a complex of historical hallmarks that could be interpreted as being particular to the historical experience of that region. These hallmarks include multi-national settlement, the presence
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wrote that: "Davies and
Moorhouse set out to present the history of the city, a microcosm of Central Europe, as evenhandedly as possible, freeing it from the straitjackets of German and Polish nationalisms, and giving due weight to its Jewish and Czech components." He added that "Microcosm must be
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318:(German Poland Institute), stated that the authors are unfamiliar with the subject and have a tendency to overemphasize the multicultural aspect of the city in order to please the city council, the sponsor of the book. To Loew the work is "largely worthless as a scholarly source".
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Winfried Irgang, deputy director of the Herder
Institute Marburg, criticized the book for a number of technical defects and even factual errors, especially in the sections about Middle Ages and the Habsburg era. Irgang moreover states that Davies is unfamiliar with the subject.
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Winfried Irgang: Rezension von: Norman Davies / Roger
Moorhouse: Die Blume Europas. Breslau - Wroclaw - Vratislavia: Die Geschichte einer mittel-europäischen Stadt, München: Droemersche Verlagsanstalt Th. Knaur Nachf. 2002, in: sehepunkte 2 (2002), Nr. 9 ,
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reduces many streets of the city to rubble, the remaining
Germans gradually withdraw. The hopeless situation of the civilians, complicated by shelling, temperatures of minus 20 and food shortages, deteriorates still further as
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Peter Oliver Loew: Rezension zu: Davies, Norman; Moorhouse, Roger: Die Blume
Europas. Breslau - Wroclaw - Vratislavia. Die Geschichte einer mitteleuropäischen Stadt. München 2002. In: H-Soz-u-Kult, 19.09.2002,
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noted the book's "scholarship and objectivity," adding that it "also makes a fascinating story." C.J. Schüler called the book "an impressive and timely history of one of the continent's great cities".
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of a Jewish community, the development of dynastic rather than national polities in the pre-modern era and the exposure in the 20th century to both
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was well received by the reading public upon its release. Apart from the original
English the book was also published in the
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also praised the work as remaining "above the national squabbles" and compared Davies and
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The majority of reviewers were very positive about the book. Writing in the "English
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The book opens with a description of the siege and fall of German
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Zawadzki, W. H., The Slavonic and East European Review, Vol. 81, No. 2 (Apr., 2003), pp. 348-350
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Trail of Hope: The Anders Army, An Odyssey Across Three Continents
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The opening chapter of the book contains a description of the
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acclaimed as exemplary." In the Spectator, meanwhile,
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Native Lands: A Global Journey into History and Memory
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