Europe : A History

Rating:
Summary: Interesting, informative and well written.
Review: It is an excellent book, very informative and written interestingly. One of few books that include entire European continent with all participating nations. An honest attempt to present objectively history of that continent. I also liked the concept of capsules with detailed probes into certain points in time and space. After I finished, I decided that it was pity the book was not twice the size! Perhaps we could persuade the author to write one more volume? Capsule named "Genocide" seemed to be misunderstood. I checked the meaning of the word in the Webster's dictionary and than read the capsule again. Everything was correct. Incidentally, writing an opinion about the book one did not buy and read (see below) is meaningless.

Rating:
Summary: Engaging, excellent, balanced and a must-read
Review: Without doubt an excellent book. I found it very balanced; it pointed out the biases that I (as a non-European) clearly saw in so-called 'histories' of europe, while they were really histories of western europe. He is also an excellent and engaging writer; that perhaps is galling to the snobs (such as the NY Times Book Reviews; whoever has seen any decent book on the 'NY Times Best Seller List'??).

Rating:
Summary: Europe History - an intimate approach
Review: Norman Davies successfully creates an atmosphere of intimacy and comfort while telling the history of Europe. The historian obviously dived deep into laborious research work and assimilated vast amounts of information on the events, atmosphere and spirit of each age that he describes. The writing is relaxed. The professor knows what he is talking about. He enjoys it and makes you love it. After each page you get wiser and ever more curious to see how it ends. There are few overtones in places where for the sake of logic and reason, the author tries to explain and link various events/characters/books. Still, who cares with so many kings, knights, poets, craftsmen, troubadours and politicians flooding out on our reading desks?

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Summary: IDIOT'S GUIDE TO HISTORY
Review: I agree with one of the previous reviewers, Oliver Kamm, especially about the capsule "Genocide". This book is easy to read but was probably easier to write. It is too superficial and still full of errors. The relative emphasis on subjects are unbalanced. This book may meet the expectations of tourists before their trip to Europe, particularly if they don't care about the reliability of information. As a result I regret buying this biased, subjective and concentrated book of European history.

Rating:
Summary: Disappointing
Review: This book has been a huge best-seller in the U.K. where I presently reside. Since my wife and I will spend the next 2 years touring Europe, it seemed like an ideal purchase. I was very disappointed and felt that I had wasted my money. The book rambles and is overly verbose. Further, inordinate attention is placed on the author's speciality area: Eastern Europe. If you are interested in an alternative I would highly recommend The History of Europe by Oxford's John Roberts. That book is better written and does a superior job of illuminating the mechanisms underlying the continent's great historic changes. I would score it a 10.

Rating:
Summary: Highly original approach to european history
Review: Mr. Davies has written a wonderful overview of European history, adequately detailed and liberally spiced with extracts of text - he calls them capsules - which deal with everything from the origin of Gregorian chants to Roman poetry. The most valuable aspect of the book is that it gives one a sense of perspective. For example, in the space of a few pages Mr. Davies makes a compelling argument that the rise of Islam was essential to the development of a common european identity.The extensive appendices are full of fascinating information.

Rating:
Summary: Worth reading.
Review: Reading the reader's review that viewed the book as worthless on the basis of a NY Times review was enough to make me decide to buy the book.

Rating:
Summary: I like it.
Review: I've never taken a European history class so I can't really judge the content but my family is moving to Belgium for several years and I wanted a readable, interesting book so I wouldn't be completely in the dark. I found this book very enjoyable.

Rating:
Summary: The best history of Europe I have read.
Review: I have read a few versions of the European history. In my opinion Norman Davies did a great job. His book is the most objective and interesting. The description of major battles, however, could be more detailed.

Rating:
Summary: A much-hyped work suffering from innumerable errors of fact.
Review: This is a most perplexing work. It has received extensive and highly favourable reviews, but its reliability as a general work of history is slim. The straightforward and quite extreme errors of fact are almost as numerous as the page numbers - for example, Davies gets the dates of all but one of the British Tudor monarchs wrong. What I find especially misleading, though, is its relentless stress on the centrality of Polish history to Europe; this reflects the author's specialism, not a disinterested judgement. Finally, his treatment of the term "genocide", with its bizarre attempt to identify analogous experiences with the Holocaust, runs perilously close to frivolity. All in all, this book will probably be forgotten in a few years' time; at least, I hope so.