Europe: A History Book

I read this on a Kindle which in terms of sheer logistics is the best way to read a 1392 page book. A "book" book of this size is just too uncomfortable to read in any other way. The Kindle came into its own especially with its notes and highlights features.

1392 pages, too little to cover 3 or 4,000 years of complex history of a continent? 1392 pages, too many pages to not be bored or overwhelmed with information?

Davies did this by not writing a conventional history. By conventional I mean not by chronology alone. He certainly starts at the start with neolithic peoples but he also starts by questioning what is Europe? He does a fair bit of historiography throughout questioning assumptions and reviewing what the profession thinks about certain issues and controversies. For instance he looks at the basis of Classical Greek civilisation, reviewing the "Black Athena" thesis (and dismissing it).

What Davies does is write stories, some very opinionated. He writes stories about important aspects of European history. For instance when writing about the Roman class system he mentions slavery and goes off on a tangent about the history of slavery in Europe and then he comes back to Rome.

There is the problem of what sort of reader would like this book. If you're a history buff why reread all the stuff you have read before and if you aren't a history buff why pick up a nearly 1400 page history book in the first place. The simple answer is gaps and connections. Everyone has a gap in their knowledge and Davies sees connections where most don't.

Davies is an Eastern European specialist so he brings that insight into the book. He sees the interconnections between Western and Eastern Europe and how they formed. He gives space and credit to Byzantium and Orthodox Christianity. I knew nothing of Byzantium until I was about 15. I suspect most English speaking /Catholic/Protestant people are the same. Before this book I knew nothing of the history of Poland. Does the average person know why Poland had a large Jewish population? Well the reason is that when Europe was ripping itself to pieces over religion in the 16th and 17th Poland had a conscious policy of religious freedom and toleration so the Jews of Europe came and settled in a land that did not persecute them. It was only in the 19th Century with Poland split and the pressure of Czarist Orthodoxy that the idea of a real Pole being a Catholic came into play.

I would highly recommend this book both for the specialist and the lay reader. I can see one potential untapped market with the rise of China and India. It is quirky in style and opinionated but it is well written.