Behind Each Story Is Another Worth Discovering

Courage is not a trait that defines the work of a historian in the first place. Norman Davies, like no other, was not afraid to go beyond his friendly cultural circle. He left the safe haven of the English language to face history on a global scale. Because, as the example of Fryderyk Chopin and his work proves, history, like music, recognizes no boundaries. He constantly confronts his familiar state of knowledge about the past with his own curiosity and emerging questions. Therefore, in this volume, Norman Davies will take us on a historic journey from the Baltic coast to the Mediterranean world. We will look at images of the first American landscape artists and try to answer the question of what happened to the passengers of the missing flight MH370.

Plus ultra. Reaching Further reveals decades-old paths of exploration and interest for Norman Davies. It has not been enclosed either within state borders or in the modern definition of national histories, and every topic it raises moves the horizon of learning about the past further and further.

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Plus ultra is the opposite of non plus ultra – the Latin phrase meaning “nothing more than this” or “there is nothing more”, which is reportedly engraved on the cliffs of the Pillars of Hercules as a warning to flowing sailors. In antiquity, no one crossed the western ocean, the Greeks and Romans were unaware of the existence of the Americas, and the two great rock formations guarding the mouths of the Mediterranean were considered the end of the world – the Rock of Gibraltar and the Jabal Musa in Morocco. So the point of the warning was, “You continue sailing at your own risk.”