Norman Davies Meet the Author

Of course, expect much more on that

into the evening and tomorrow.

That's this edition of Outside

Source, next on the BBC News

Channel, it is Meet The Author.

This week on Meet the

Author Jim Naughtie talks

with the writer and historian

Norman Davies about his new book

Beneath Another Sky:

A Global Journey into History.

He circumnavigates the globe to

explore in some remotest places,

stories of settlement and migration,

driven by the primeval urge to "get

up and go." Welcome.

Thing to think that we all have an

urge to get up and go, it's quite

another thing to do it. You are no

young man. You set off and you

sunshining up navigated the globe to

all kinds of places that you must

never have imagined that you would

get to. What drove you on?

After a

certain age, I received an

invitation to Australia but I don't

like long flights so I decided to go

by easy stages and take my time. And

then I realised why go back the same

way, just keep going, it took

several months but it was a

tremendous idea at my age!

And the

story you have followed, really, is

the story of human movement, of

migration, which of course is a very

contemporary problem, obsession but

it is one that you see as

fundamental and to explaining, how

the world has come to be the way

that it is?

Absolutely. Human beings

have been migrating, they've been on

the move ever since they emerged

whatever it was, 2 million years

ago. Moving from place toe place,

eventually from continent to

continent and their various

movements, collisions, interactions,

conquests, co abtearingses have

created the world as we know it,

without that, human history would be

completely different.

Your focus has tended to be European

in the past. You have written a lot

about the Slavic portion of Europe

and also written on the islands, and

these islands which we sit. How did

your perspective change when you

began to visit some of these, what

Europeans would called, remote

outposts?

Well my choices are to go

to places I had never been before

and didn't know much about. The idea

was more about learning and

extending what I already knew.

It was a voyage of discovery?

Exactly.

Sometimes I went to places which,

their history coincided, you go to

Baku, it used to be a part of the

Russian empire but many of the

places were completely foreign to

me, so all the more interesting for

that.

It's a fascinating catalogue. All of

little known places of the world,

what was the first point at which

you felt on this journey, you were

really on to something here, you

didn't know the story of this place

and it's telling you something you

had never thought of before?

I had

that feeling very often indeed. Of

course I could communicate better in

some places than others. I went to

Mauritius, an outpost if ever there

was one but found a speak, a French

Creole but found a speaker, which

was interesting, that I could speak

to people, learn and read books and

so on but less son when you go to

Malaysia.

You were inevitably the outsider?

Every-I was but I did, still get

under the skin, often. I went to

Texas and wrote an essay about the

very first American settlers in

Texas and lo and behold, I was able

to spend a day with the descendent

of one of the 300, the first group

of American settlers in Texas. So I

was an outer but still I tried to

communicate with people at much as

possible. I spent 40 years writing

about a tiny corner of the world.

Now you've got to see, to get a

taste of the rest of it, and the

rest, it is, of course, enormous. So

you can't become an expert on these

places but you get a feel of how

things developed, where people's

came from, what are the relations

between the different continents

that I went to.

You have split your life for a long

time between this country and

Poland, coming back to Europe,

having undertaken this journey and

having processed the thoughts that

make up this book, has your view of

Europe changed?

Inevitably, Europe

now for me is a much smaller place.

I used to think it was almost all

the world. Now I see that Europe is

a small particular, of a very much

bigger Continent. Of course, no-one

will ever get to understand all of

the complications but at least while

you can still think reasonably

clearliy, you need to get a sense of

the size of the globe and the

complexities of human history and so

on.

When you are talking about migration

as such an important component of

human history, it puts into

perspective the panic and the

political difficulty that we go to

cross Europe at the moment, because

of migration, there's a consequence

of water shortages in Africa and war

in the Middle East. It does tend to

say look, there is more under the

sun?

Absolutely. You begin to see

yourself looking like you are

watching the Romans coming over the

rise in the 4th, 5th century. Most

of historical change is not smooth.

It happens with leaps and bounds and

intervals between. But we are living

through a phase where humanity is on

the march.

Our little hard continent is the

target destination for many of them

at the moment.

You've been writing history for half

a century now, more or less, this is

an extraordinary work to have come

up with in the sense that the sheer

volume of work that is involved

putting this together in unknown

places, you know, dealing with

cultures of which you yourself say

you knew very little, wanting to get

it right, bringing an academic focus

to, what a thing to take on?

Well

I've done that before. I don't know

where I will do it again.

It's just what you do?

Of course,

and it is a learning exercise,

preventing ourselves going stale by

write being the same things all the

time, which is what some historians

do.

You end the introduction by quoting

tenson from. Lysses, seeking a new

world. That is what you are doing

here?

I realise I was in the

category of ageing Ulysses who

wanted to set sail one more time.

Yes, that was, whether I will ever

have another voyage, I will never

know.

But you're glad you did?

Oh,

absolutely. I'm still amazed that I

was able to do it and got to the

last page.

Norman Davies, author of

Beneath Another Sky, thank you very

much.

Thank you