God's Playground

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title: "God's Playground" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["1979-non-fiction-books", "books-by-norman-davies", "history-books-about-poland", "20th-century-history-books", "english-language-non-fiction-books", "columbia-university-press-books"] description: "History book by Norman Davies" topic_path: "history" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God's_Playground" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary History book by Norman Davies ::

::data[format=table title="infobox book"]

Field	Value
name	God's Playground
image	Gods playground davies book cover.jpg
image_size	200px
border	yes
author	Norman Davies
country	United Kingdom
language	English
subject	History of Poland
publisher	Columbia University Press
release_date	1981
oclc	416195288
::

|name = God's Playground |orig title = |translator = |image = Gods playground davies book cover.jpg |image_size = 200px |border = yes |author = Norman Davies |cover_artist = |country = United Kingdom |language = English |series = |subject = History of Poland |genre = |publisher = Columbia University Press |release_date = 1981 |media_type = |pages = |isbn = |oclc = 416195288 |preceded_by = |followed_by = God's Playground: A History of Poland is a history book in two volumes written by Norman Davies, covering a 1000-year history of Poland. Volume 1: The origins to 1795, and Volume 2: 1795 to the present first appeared as the Oxford Clarendon Press publication in 1981 and have since been reprinted multiple times, and translated into Polish as Boże igrzysko : Historia Polski by Elżbieta Tabakowska (2 volumes in 1, with 1183 pages by Znak Publishers of Kraków). Davies was inspired to the title by Jan Kochanowski's 1580s poem Boże igrzysko ("Mankind: Bauble of the Gods").

The book, which most editions split into two volumes, has received favourable reviews in the international press, and is considered by many historians and other scholars to be one of the best English-language books on the subject of the history of Poland. The author received several Polish honours.

Selected editions

; English:

• God's Playground, Columbia University Press, 1979
• God's Playground, Oxford University Press, 1981, (vol. 1), (vol. 2)
• God's Playground, Columbia University Press, 1982, (vol. 1) and (vol. 2)
• God's Playground, Columbia University Press, 1983
• God's Playground, Oxford University Press, 1983, (vol. 2)
• God's Playground, Columbia University Press, 1984, (vol.1), (vol. 2)
• God's Playground, Oxford University Press, 2005, (vol. 1) and (vol. 2)
• God's Playground, Columbia University Press, 2005, (vol. 1), (vol. 2) ; Polish:
• Boże igrzysko, bibuła edition in the 1980s
• Boże igrzysko, ZNAK 1989,
• Boże igrzysko, ZNAK 1994,
• Boże igrzysko, ZNAK 1999
• Boże igrzysko, ZNAK 2006,

Notes

References

1. WorldCat.org. (20 December 2017). "Formats and Editions of ''God's Playground: A History of Poland''".
2. WorldCat.org. (20 December 2017). "Formats and Editions of ''Boże igrzysko: Historia Polski''".
3. "This is a remarkable book... this is a major work that is imaginative, thought-provoking and extremely well written".-- [[Piotr S. Wandycz]], review in The American Historical Review, Vol. 88, No. 2 (April 1983), pp. 436-437, [https://www.jstor.org/pss/1865504 JSTOR]
   L. R. Lewitter, review in The Historical Journal, Vol. 26, No. 4 (December 1983), pp. 1032-1034 [http://mc1litvip.jstor.org/pss/2639300 JSTOR] {{Webarchive. link. (16 July 2012
   [[Anna M. Cienciala]], review in the Slavic Review, Vol. 42, No. 3 (Autumn, 1983), pp. 510-512, [https://www.jstor.org/pss/2496084 JSTOR])

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