# Quote — Norman Davies, Europe

> Reconstructing the past is rather like translating poetry. It can be done, but never exactly. Whether one deals with prehistoric recipes, colonial settlements, or medieval music, it needs great imagination and restraint if the twin perils of artless authenticity and clueless empathy are to be avoided.

- Author: [Norman Davies](https://www.leafyquotes.com/norman-davies.md)
- Book: [Europe](https://www.leafyquotes.com/norman-davies/europe.md)
- Page: 83
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Norman_Davies#Europe:_A_History_(1996)) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/norman-davies/europe/reconstructing-the-past

## More from this book

> Ch. 7: Renatio (p. 556)

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/norman-davies/europe/ch-7-renatio.md)

> There are shades of barbarism in twentieth-century Europe which would once have amazed the most barbarous of barbarians. At a time when the instruments of constructive change had outstripped anything previously known, Europeans acquiesced in a string of conflicts which destroyed more human beings than all past convulsions put together.

p. 897 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/norman-davies/europe/there-are-shades.md)

> Arguably, the only fruit of the Crusades kept by the Christians was the apricot.

p. 358 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/norman-davies/europe/arguably-the-only.md)