Europe: A History

by Norman Davies

Book Overview

"In the beginning," writes Norman Davies, "there was no Europe. All there was, for five million years, was a long, sinuous peninsula with no name, set like the figurehead of a ship on the prow of the world's largest land mass. To the west lay the ocean which no one had crossed. To the south lay two enclosed and interlinked seas, sprinkled with islands, inlets, and peninsulas of their own. To the north lay the great polar icecap, expanding and contracting...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0195209125
• ISBN13: 9780195209129
• Release Date: December 1996
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
• Length: 1424 Pages
• Weight: 2.47 lbs.
• Dimensions: 2.6" x 6.5" x 9.5"

Customer Reviews

An invaluable desk reference as well as fascinating history

This book has proven to be one of my most valuable desk references. I wished I had bought the hardback, given the wear and tear on it over the 6 years I have had it. Davies has done a marvelous job of condensing a tremendous amount of history into one volume. He approaches it in a three-fold way. He provides a richly flowing narrative that covers the story of Europe much like an epic novel. He intersperses the narrative with an extensive series of "Capsules" that take in special events and interesting asides in the development of a European identity. Lastly, he provides a massive set of appendices that cover everything from royal lines to WWII death tolls. The narrative is divided into a set of 12 chapters that cover broad periods of time starting with the environment and prehistory of the contintnet to the Cold War era. Davies has a tremendous command of the events which shaped Europe. His strength lies in his understanding of Eastern Europe, and in particular Poland, expanding the breadth of the continent beyond its usual eastern borders. In fact one might say that Davies has made the case to rethink European history along Eastern European lines, which is the logical extension of his earlier two-volume history of Poland. He takes in Russian history, with special attention to its Slavic roots. He deals with the inevitable conflicts that arose and provides good summaries of the World Wars. He deals with the restoration of Western Europe and the demise of Eastern Europe following WWII along ideological lines, noting how one rose at the expense of the other. He chooses to end his narrative with the collapse of the Soviet Union, providing a short epilogue on his thoughts concerning the new allignments in Europe.The numerous capsules are a very interesting approach in dealing with cultural aspects of Europe. He offers an astonishing array of anecdotes in these capsules such as the origins of Dr. Faustas to the transcendental nature of the famous war song, Lili Marlene. Although he covers much of the cultural history of Europe in his narrative, it is in these capsules that one finds many fascinating aspects of this cultural history and how it has evolved over the century.The appendices cover a lot of ground, illustruating some of the iconography of Europe, providing extensive lists of everything from the Popes and Patriarchs of Rome to a selection of the works and authors banned by the Papal Index. He provides numerous maps and charts to help guide you through the rough and tumble history of Europe, and provides accurate death tolls of the World Wars. He also provides extensive book notes as well as an excellent index to help guide you in subsequent searches.This is probably the best one-volume history of Europe available today and one that will serve you will in gaining an understanding of this rich and varied continent. His rich prose makes it a pleasure to read and his excellent index allows for quick searches to look up key events.

A Unique Balanced Perspective On European History

This is a totally absorbing, sparkling romp over the just completed millennium of European history. A fantastic job, although I will agree with other reviewers that this can be a tough read if you are not already familiar with much of the range of ethnic and national history.Davies clearly states his premise in the Introduction.....his desire to provide a single volumn survey that provides an evenly magnified view from both the number of pages per year and the geographic/ethnic perspective of the writer. His objective is to avoid focusing on recent centuries or recently predominant cultures at the expense of more distant or less studied times or regions. This alone is a worthy effort and makes the entire tome almost an obligatory read for a serious amateur historian like myself.Davies provides several ingenious aids to your perspective as you plow through this vast field of information. There are 300 capsules that entertain as well as provide tangential sideshows. (Did you know that Pope John Paul II approved the exhumation of Elizabeth of Austria's tomb in 1973 in an attempt to foser Polish patriotism, yet 16 people may have died from the bacilli that were released? Or, how about stretching your mind by trying to comprehend the horror of Stalin's genocidal act of state policy as he created an artificial famine by cordoning off the Ukraine in 1932-3 until 7 million people were dead?) This is a powerful book.Even better is the orientation of the European maps throughout the book so that you are looking at them with the west uppermost, thus viewing the continent as the first settlers (and more importantly, central and eastern Europeans) perceived their relationships. Especially for those of us with anglized perspectives, it's a very good thing to see the distance and small scale with which the western European nations hold by comparison with the mass of the rest of the continent.This book is remarkable in the unique perceptual orientations it provides. When added to the balanced approach of the quantity of text, there is a true effort to provide a non-western European view and this is very much needed. A great job and a worthy read for anyone serious about the past of our species.

An Excellent Overview with Much Detail!

I have read both Robert's and Davies' books on general European history. Robert's book is an excellent, concise introduction to the history of Europe that can be read in several weeks. After reading Robert's text, one has a good concept and understanding of the "basics." Davies' book includes all of the data covered by Roberts but goes into much greater detail, including many names, locations, etc only alluded to in Robert's work. The "capsules" that occur throughout the volume are indeed irritating but sometimes interesting. The stressing of Eastern Europe is not a problem and often adds much interesting information. Davies' book is much more "meaty" than Roberts'. Thus, if you want a concise introduction and review of a very extensive topic, read Roberts; if you want a more comprehensive and involved text, read Davies; or ideally, read both but start with Robert's text!

'Europe' for all Europeans

"I am a candle," said Reason. Love replied: "Brother! I am the sun - so your time comes only when I set." Henryk Sienkiewicz (1846-1916)There are not many examples of such an altruistic approach in European history. It makes us appreciate even more those few that are left. The NATO action aimed at liberating the Albanian minority in Kosovo is one of those generous acts worth remembering. Norman Davies makes us remember some other examples. When the Ottoman Empire troops stood at the gates of Western Europe more than three centuries ago, the Polish king, John Sobieski, led the Polish Commonwealth army and decisively contributed to saving Vienna , (a faraway place given the Warsaw perspective), from almost sure disaster. Not many people know the sad epilogue of that story. In less than a hundred years, the Austrian Emperors grabbed one third of Poland! That was really a special "generosity". We must not forget that some of the Western glory was just grabbed from many, sometimes exotic countries of Asia, Africa and America. The "discovery" of America could also be easily read as conquest. Immeasurable riches gathered that way by Spain are much better known than the fact that Polish prosperity at that time was earned by grain export to Western Europe. At that time, the Polish Commonwealth (Rzeczpospolita) was called "the Granary of Europe". The timing of publishing this huge work by Davies is particularly symbolic and favourable. At the turn of the third millenium, Europe and also America badly needed such a book! Unlike his many predecessors, Davies paid a lot of attention to the many factors integrating rather than dividing Europe. The book is full of fine verses, original descriptions coming from library sources, and wonderful capsules - tiny streams feeding the River of European history. I absolutely agree with one of the readers in Sweden that Davies' work is one of few, if any, readable histories of Europe. Cultural European heritage is widely attributed to the Western part of Europe. Thanks to this honest West European historian, we now have a much more balanced and fair account. Davies has shocked some old-fashioned readers with his would-be new facts about Eastern Europe. The old logic of reading history was: no rights for the weak and no voice for the weak. I would compare it to the position of women or slaves throughout the ages. The Ancient Romans would probably be astonished that someone would point out their foul practice of enslaving people. Many XIXth century gentlemen would feel offended to hear that women deserve exactly the same rights that the gentlemen enjoy themselves. Oh yes, the kingdoms of Hungary and Poland were in the forefront of Christianity for centuries, defending prosperous Western European nations against the hostile Oriental world. They became much weakened that way. Their bodies, placed geographically at the heart o

At last - a readable book on History !

Over the past few years I have purchased a few books on History but have always struggled to finish them. I read this book (all 1200 pages) from start to finish in a period of 3 weeks and was never bored. I am not an expert in History and never had any higher education in this subject and therefore cannot comment on the accuracy of the material. I often felt that I wanted to know more of certain parts of the history but realize that a complete coverage of this vast topic is impossible in a single book. Probably not a book for 'experts' but if you want a good overview of the history of Europe then you can't ask for much better than this !