God's Playground

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 in multiple times,^[1] and translated into Polish as Boże igrzysko : Historia Polski by Elżbieta Tabakowska (2 volumes in 1, with 1183 pages by Znak Publishers of Kraków).^[2] 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^[3] 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,
  ISBN 0-19-822592-X
  (vol. 2)
• God's Playground, Columbia University Press, 1982,
  ISBN 0-231-05352-5
  (vol. 2)
• God's Playground, Columbia University Press, 1983
• God's Playground, Oxford University Press, 1983,
  ISBN 0-19-821944-X
  (vol. 2)
• God's Playground, Columbia University Press, 1984,
  ISBN 0-231-05353-3
  (vol. 2)
• God's Playground, Oxford University Press, 2005,
  ISBN 0-19-925340-4
  (vol. 2)
• God's Playground, Columbia University Press, 2005,
  ISBN 0-231-12819-3
  (vol. 2)

• Boże igrzysko,
  bibuła
  edition in the 1980s
• Boże igrzysko, ZNAK 1989,
  ISBN 83-7006-052-8
• Boże igrzysko, ZNAK 1994,
  ISBN 83-7006-331-4
• Boże igrzysko, ZNAK 1999
• Boże igrzysko, ZNAK 2006,
  ISBN 83-240-0654-0