The Penguin History of Europe

Rating:
Summary: Pass the Cliff's Notes!
Review: A number of my fellow college students and I have found this book to excrutiatingly slow, heavy reading. The average student will spend several hours reading Roberts, only to note with dismay that he/she has only covered one or two chapters. This book contains a wealth of information, but this does not redeem its wet-cement reading consistency. My rating of one star is too generous for Roberts' History of Europe.

Rating:
Summary: An excellent survey of European history
Review: At approximately the same time, we were blessed with not one but two single-volume histories of Europe: one by Norman Davies and this one by J. M. Roberts. I have read around in the Davies and have completed this one, and I can point out a couple of differences between the two. One, Davies's history is probably more well rounded and a bit more comprehensive. This partly stems from its greater length. On the other hand, Davies is more willing to grind axes (though I have nothing against axe-grinding myself), while Roberts is almost aggressively neutral on most issues. Roberts simply gives the history as best he can; Davies is apt to brood over the very idea of giving history. If forced to make a recommendation, I would recommend the Davies over this volume by Roberts. There is more personality in Davies's book, and while I admire Roberts's evenhandedness, it doesn't help that much in assisting one through a long book.

And speaking of long books, why would one want to read such a volume as this? It is far too short to be adequate as a history of Europe. Too many things must be mentioned quickly, if at all. For instance, as a former student of the history of philosophy, I was struck by the fact that everything that Roberts says about Descartes, Montaigne, Locke, Leibniz, Berkeley, Hume, Bacon, Spinoza, Kant, Rousseau, Mill, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Wittgenstein, Heidegger, and Sartre could have easily fit onto two pages, with room for an extra paragraph or two. There is simply no room for depth or detail. In other words, at best we will get a bird's eye view of the landscape of European history. All subtlety, all nuances will be indiscernible. The question reasserts itself: is there a point to this?

I think there is. I have over the years read pretty extensively in European and American history, but not systematically. The great thing about a single-volume history is that it allows you to engage in a self-test. I was, of course, already quite aware that there were many things in European history about which I was ignorant, but this book helped me to learn more precisely what it was that I didn't know. For instance, I'm dreadfully ill informed on Baltic, Slavic, Polish, and Russian history. My knowledge of the Habsburgs is spotty. And my knowledge of European pre-history is practically nonexistent.

This is not all. Not only do you learn what you do not know (thus setting the stage for additional self-education in the future), but also it is great to go over what you do know in a larger context. I knew a surprising amount about the French religious wars of the 16th century, but reading about them in a larger context brings home an increased sense of how they fit in the scheme of things. In addition, the book served as a good review for a host of topics, such as the history of Ancient Greece or the Hundred Years War or the years between WW I and WW II.

Is this an ideal way of learning European history? No. In fact, I would not recommend this book for beginners in the subject at all. Instead of immediately striving for an overview, I would recommend instead focusing on a particular period that one finds interesting. Read several books on that first, and then allow oneself to expand. More than that, you must eventually force yourself to expand. What happens eventually is that you will have criss-crossed European history to such a degree that your studies will start to connect up with fascinating ways. The book you have read on WW I will connect with the book by (or about) T. E. Lawrence, which will connect up with a book on the break up of the Ottoman Empire, which will connect up with the book on Byzantine Art. This way you can gain both breadth and depth on the subject. Reading Roberts will only gain breadth, and if one is unfamiliar with at least most of the highpoints, it is unlikely to make much of an impact.

So, I think this book can be helpful to those with prior familiarity of the subject who want to review what they already know, gain some sense of what they don't know, or get a sense of how the whole thing fits together, but I am not sure that this would be at all a good place for a beginner to go to learn about European history.

Rating:
Summary: A summer's vacation for sure!
Review: Roberts' The Pengin History of Europe contains detailed information of European history. Beginning with the Stone Age ending in the 20th century. Europes' influence on government, economics, and religion are covered in detail. Greek, Roman, Asian, Italian, Germans, Russian, and even American history have been influenced by Europes will and power. If you are a historian or history professor, Roberts' discussions will have you yearning for more. For us less scholarly students, it is a reader's nightmare.

Rating:
Summary: A summer's vacation for sure!
Review: Roberts' The Pengin History of Europe contains detailed information of European history. Beginning with the Stone Age ending in the 20th century. Europes' influence on government, economics, and religion are covered in detail. Greek, Roman, Asian, Italian, Germans, Russian, and even American history have been influenced by Europes will and power. If you are a historian or history professor, Roberts' discussions will have you yearning for more. For us less scholarly students, it is a reader's nightmare.

Rating:
Summary: i'll pass
Review: Studying Eastern European histry, this book came as a shock to me for its lack of depth and truth concerning this region of Europe. The first constitutional monarchy in Europe, Poland, is given no credit for its Constitution of May 3rd, 1791. In fact, it's not even there at all. Other misleading factoids have the Lithuanian state 'defeating the Teutonic knights at Tannenberg', while in reality they only constituted about a third of the Polish force. So, in general, this book goes nowhere new; it overgeneralizes and misrepresents Eastern Europe while glorifying the big two; France and England.

Rating:
Summary: How to write history
Review: The other reviews for this book make me wonder whether the other reviewers actually read the book.

I found a The Penguin History of Europe (A History of Europe in hardback) a delightful informative read. Mr. Roberts covers history in a way that provides facts without sounding factual. I am researching my own book and found his to be a good starting point for chasing down relevant information. The book is only loosely chronologically based and instead emphasizes topical issues. After I read this work I understood the how each country in Europe related to others worldwide and to history itself. If this book had been available in my high school, I would have looked forward to class!