Beneath Another Sky

Who first settled a given place, and how did its present population come to be there? Norman Davies takes these questions around the globe in this blend of travel writing and historical inquiry. Davies argues that people have always been on the move, and that the mix of cultures, peoples, tongues and states found on every continent grew out of that constant movement, with its migrations, clashes, conquests and exchanges.

The book grew out of Davies's own restlessness. Having spent decades writing about Europe, he set out on a long voyage around the world, visiting around twenty countries he had never known well. Like Tennyson's aging Ulysses, he wanted one final adventure. He hoped to sharpen his powers of observation, to enjoy the unfamiliar, and to meet the past in a fresh way.

His route runs through Baku, the Emirates, India, Malaysia, Mauritius, Tasmania, Tahiti, Texas, Madeira and many places in between. At each stop he describes the present and then digs down through the accumulated layers of earlier events that shape it. He visits ancient temples and odd museums, explains the intricacies of India's caste system, Austronesian languages and Pacific exploration, and looks into the fate of indigenous peoples and a Malaysian airliner that disappeared. He considers cultural tension in Cornwall, reveals the Nazi roots of Frankfurt airport, and holds forth on imperialism in a desert oasis.

Davies's voice is a strong presence throughout: wry, romantic, sometimes irritable, and driven by an unending curiosity about the world. He keeps the wider historical horizon in view alongside the scene in front of him, and the result is a book that complicates the way we think about the past.