Rating: 
Summary: Serious effort required, with little reward
Review: Unless you have an in-depth classical education, and are knowledgable about the historical geography of Europe, I recommend you avoid this book. I tried Davies after reading the first three volumes of Will Durant's "The Story of Civilization." I was hoping for better focus, and fewer pages. Durant often numbs the reader with huge numbers of names and places (with very few maps). But Davies is worse than Durant in this respect! He assumes the reader is _very_ knowledgable about the historical geography of Europe (not enough maps!), and also assumes the reader has a detailed classical education (e.g., he gives less than 1 page of discussion on Plato and Aristotle). I purchased Haywood's excellent atlas of world history, spent time fumbling through Davies' detailed appendixes, and read slowly through the first 100+ pages. But the effort was not rewarded. And that is a shame: Davies spends many pages in his introduction discussing how Americans (like myself) need a reasonably sized book from which we can learn about our European heritage. I haven't found that book yet.
Rating: 
Summary: PASS THE OXYGEN!!!
Review: I must make this review short as finishing this bohemoth of a book has thoroughly exhausted me!Why 4 stars? An unbelievable epic that takes you on a grand tour through the history of Europe, but one that, necessarily, saps you of all strength. It is an overwhelming book, filled with an unimagineable amount of info, that will leave you begging for the end.
Don't take this review the wrong way...It is an excellent book, written in a flowing manner, by an author who is well qualified and gifted enough to complete the project. But do not undertake the reading of this book expecting to breeze through thousands of years in a couple of weeks and instantly understand European history. This book takes much pondering and some re-reading to grasp even a small part of it. An excellent candidate for a second reading, unfortunately I could never again labor through the 50 hours needed to complete it. My mind now needs a break...SOMEONE PASS ME THE COMICS!!!
Rating: 
Summary: Massively important work
Review: A work of commendable boldness, Norman Davies Europe is the kind of work that most historians tend to cringe from. Written with the intelligent layman in mind (the only reader who matters), Davies prose brings life to material that would come off as positively dessicated in less skilled hands. While he modestly claims that there is little original material of his own that he contributed, the synthesis is nonetheless spectacular. Also, he puts Eastern Europe in the forefront of European history, where it unquestionably belongs in the twentienth century. The power struggles between Germany and the USSR are positively incomprehensible without a thorough knowledge of this area. On that note, I would like to comment on one issue that has come up in the course of the reviews on Amazon concerning the massacres of the Stalinist Soviet Union. While I agree that Davies' main source for this material, the historian Robert Conquest, has quite possiblly exaggerated the numbers of the dead, the fact remains that even by the most conservative estimates there were still millions killed. Anyone who contends otherwise is a Stalinist sycophant of the type who still believes that the Ukrainian Terror Famine was a fabrication of the "pro-Nazi" Hurst press, who were, incidentally, duly and deservedly excoriated by George Orwell, a voice of reason in an age of intellecual delusion and frivolous posturing. While I mean absolutely no disrespect to the victims of the Nazi Holocaust, I believe that the victims of Stalin deserve equal respect, not the vile, despicable calumny that is still allowed to pass under the guise of respectable opinion in this day and age. While I would not wish the fate of Stalin's victims on the reviewers who are so contemptuous and glib about those who suffered and died under his rule, I don't think it would be too sadistic of me to wish that they could live just "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich."
Rating:
Summary: never believed such a good history of Europe can be written.
Review: It is simple a great book, written entarntainingly, fuul of very interesting details but also of overviews. Excellent coverage of the smaller European nation. Simply a must-read for everyone.
Rating:
Summary: the whole nine yards: comprehensive and comprehensible
Review: I don't think that I would recommend this book to a person who knows nothing about European history. Davies' telegraphic style inserts a lot of names, locations and events without telling the reader why any of them are significant. He assumes that his reader either has either some foreknowledge of Europe's history or has the curiosity and motivation to look these things up elsewhere. To me this represents an admirable refusal to condescend to his readers. For me this overview of European history served to connect up isolated areas of more detailed knowledge that I had of certain periods, persons and places. I found myself repeatedly muttering "Aha. So that's why ...". In addition, Davies (usually in his 'boxes') has enough attention to detail to explain odd but intriguing things like how historical events caused certain cheeses in different regions to be similar. He also fulfills his initial promise to give eastern Europe more attention. I learned a great deal about Russia and the area around the Black Sea from this book and now understand much more about the Asian influence on Europe's history. It is not possible to put a 'definitive' history of Europe in one volume, even one of over 1,000 pages. This book is more of an abstract of European history in the same sense that Darwin considered On the Origin of Species to be an abstract of his ideas on the mechanisms of evolution. Davies' book should serve to incite its readers to read further in European history and to guide that reading in such a way as to make it more efficient and informed. Having read this book I feel I can now sit down to a volume on, say, the medieval history of Denmark and when outside players exert influence on the internal politics and culture of the region they will not seem so deus ex machina. Another real boon of this book is the enormous Appendix III, which includes pages and pages of maps and tables, to which I think I will quite often refer in the future. Finally, I must commend Davies for his incredibly readable prose. This material has the potential to be quite dry, but the terseness and clarity of the author's style makes the text quite transparent; you are almost never distracted from your absorption of the continuous stream of information that he presents. His chapters contain subthemes which are adhered to with discipline. He will follow a theme through a portion of the time period covered by the whole chapter and then double back in time to follow the next theme through the same period before moving on with the overall chronology. This structure allows the reader who is not particularly interested in, say, the history of the Church, to skim a bit before resuming one's absorption in the unfolding of European history. I am looking forward to reading his book on the British Isles.
Rating: 
Summary: History with an unbelievable twist
Review: I re-read some chapters of this book out of curiosity- I wondered how it would tell the story of an area I am just starting to understand well- WW2- the Eastern Front. First I sought out some background on the USSR- the usual vague references to million upon 10 millions of Bolshevik/Stalinist victims(it just doesn't add up), solemn Gulag atrocity stories and that figure of 50 million victims of Stalin- I had to look up the references-and there's... two! Robert Conquest- Cold War propagandist, and a magazine article from 1990. (Reference 35 for Chapt. XI which also contains alot of dissembling about 'demgraphic gaps'and which include VICTIMS OF WW2 as victims of the Soviet regime!?!) The Eastern Front in WW2 is described using the Great Legend of the German Generals-"Through fields of mounting corpses, the hordes of ill-clothed and ill-armed 'Ivans' kept coming and coming till the German machine-guns overheated...It was an accepted fact of the contest that the Soviet side could sustain casualties of...four to one and still carry the day." His words! Oxford historian! Another- "For most ordinary civilians, the prosoect of serving the Soviets posed the same moral dilemmas as serving the fascists." A total insult to the millions who fought the Nazis and now are lumped together with collaborators and murderous nationalists. This guy's take on WW2 is a little bit Churchill and a whole lotta Goebbels. Unbelievable!
Rating:
Summary: A Simply Stunning Achievement...Important, too
Review: Norman Davies clealy loves his history...especially European. The truly novel aspect of this work lies in the fact that it attempts to conceive European history is if Stalin agreed to withdraw out of Eastern Europe at Potsdam. There can be little doubt that we, in the West, have had a biased accounting of European history on account of this. Davies (who likely began the work in the 80s) seeks, foremost, to rekindle the historical memory of Central/Eastern Europe. Davies' eccentricity shows in, for example, his desire to bring to life seemingly insignificant events/places, ect...each chapter closes with such a 'close-up'. The 300 capsules often do, too. Another excellent quality of the book is that Davies is masterful at choosing just the right quotation from a letter, or a speech...I'll, for example, forever remember his account of the death of Stalin- because of the way he decribes it. In short, his eye for telling detail is truly, truly amazing! And, much of our historical memory is based in such detail. Finally, though I love 19th century history (and, if there is a weakness here, it's in his shift to an exclusively thematic approach to such an important period), his account of the 20th century (200-plus pages) is worthy of a read by itself. Highly recommended....it's rare such a work even gets attempted, let alone published.
Rating:
Summary: The Definitive Work on the Subject of European History
Review: Rather than engage in subjective revision, this work expends intense energy on fact and the rational representation and organization thereof. This book presents a fantastic overview of the evolution that resulted in what we now refer to as "Europe." This work masterfully traces the development through time of Europe by weaving together the patch work of various events in the region that resulted in the eventual cohesion of the modern continent, explaining along the way, that which binds as well as that which divides the various cultures that we find strugling in modern time to form a political union. My goal in reading this book was to gain an understanding of issues which may serve to unify or separate modern Europe and ultimately enable or disable the dream of a European Union. I believe this book provides a deep historical foundation upon which one may draw reasonable conclusions regarding the current failure of the EU to acquire the goal of European union. This is a brillant work and a must read for any serious student of history.
Rating:
Summary: Richly Rewarding
Review: No one book could possibly tell the whole story of Europe, but Davies comes amazingly close with this volume. This is no quick study, but a dense, detailed and yet very engaging study of the origins and history of the entire European peninsula. I have been reading this volume for two weeks no, inching along, absorbing the material as fast as I dare, and I'm still only a quarter of the way trhough the book. For example, in the space of six pages detailing Roman spiritual life, Davies also gives us: Detailed sidebars on the Arician cult; why for both the Greeks and Romans there was only one word that descibed both Cedar and Juniper; a history of Samian Pottery and its place in Roman life; and both a biography of Spartacus and a history of the subsequent use of the name of Spartacus in various utopian political movements- plus further cross references to related sidebars. There is so much here, in the narrative the the numerous sidebars, that it nearly threatens to overwhelm the reader at times. And yet the narrative never suffers for all this detail. The result of all this is great entertainment for the history buff as well as detailed narrative an some unique perspectives for the specialist. A fine read.
Rating:
Summary: A must for any scholar of European history
Review: This work belongs on the bookshelf of anyone studying European history. While some of it is a little eccentric, and yes, even biased, I would still consider it a smart investment. Let's face it, most historians' accounts of history are subjective, that's the name of the game; anyone seriously studying historical events, cultures, etc. will form their own opinions and ideas and color their work with them. Admittedly, I would have to say that this book is for someone who already has some background in European historical studies; this one is probably not the one to start with from the ground up. However, if you are looking for supplemental reading to your "objective" study, this book is a must. The sections are divided into the most important historical time periods, so it is easy to navigate the information if the size is too intimidating to start reading front to cover, although I would advise you to do just that at some point. Because of the sheer scope of time covered, Davies is of course unable to cover any one event in the detail it deserves, but he hits the most important aspects of most. The appendices alone contain a wealth of information, such as lists of important historical figures like Roman emperors and popes, numerous maps, graphic representations of early alphabets of various civilizations, and much much more. If you are looking for a completely dry, subjective study of history, leave this one alone. If you want an excellent overview and study from another perspective, grab it now.
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