Just as being in Istanbul adds to the pleasure of his accessible but thorough studies, Norwich throws in plenty of chatty asides about the marks of history still visible on the cities.
But Davidson quickly turns his attention to the sky and the rapidly fading light, and to the marks of history all around him: "There is something secretive still about these landscapes of old rebellion"; in this case, the Jacobite rebellion.
A charmingly crisp view of skaters on a frozen canal is by Auguste-Xavier Leprince (1799-1826), who didn't live long enough to leave much of a mark on history.
The same thing happened to the United States after the cold war, which was supposed to mark the end of history — and therefore the end of international politics as we knew it.
That would mark a reversal of history and the seal of a new geopolitical order.
These are names and dates that mark a few of history's great political revolutions.
The book, like a scarred body, bears the marks of its history.
Every utterance that is called a revelation was formed in a definite time and place and bears the marks of its history.
Berlin proved that the modern city as I'd come to know it wasn't entirely dead; the way it bore the marks of its history – of the second world war, of reunification – gave to it, as I'd journeyed daily within it from west to east, something like the atmosphere of concealment and strangeness that Calcutta had had.
"They are part of me, and they are marks of my history and ideology," he says.
