|
Europe: A History (平装)
by Norman Davies
| Category:
Europe history, History of civilization |
| Market price: ¥ 278.00
MSL price:
¥ 258.00
[ Shop incentives ]
|
| Stock:
Pre-order item, lead time 3-7 weeks upon payment [ COD term does not apply to pre-order items ] |
MSL rating:
 Good for Gifts |
| MSL Pointer Review:
The recipient of rave reviews, this book is an invaluable one volume desk reference as well as fascinating history, with a style of writing that is enjoyable, accessible, and informative. |
| If you want us to help you with the right titles you're looking for, or to make reading recommendations based on your needs, please contact our consultants. |
|
| |
AllReviews |
1 2   | Total 2 pages 11 items |
|
|
Jonny Harman (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-27 00:00>
Having read much on Europe over the years through books on specific parts of it, books on Europe itself (including J. M. Roberts' The Penguin History of Europe) and books more on the history of Europe and the world as a whole (inc. A History of the Modern World, by R. R. Palmer, et el), I am absolutely certain that Europe: A History is the best history book out there. I cannot possibly praise this book enough and it has set in my mind an almost impossible standard for other history books to follow. May I say that Davies leaves Roberts in the dust?
As other reviewers tell you, Davies' style is absolutely compelling, and every page-turning chapter also includes fascinating boxed-texts ("capsules"), periodical chapter summaries, and very likely comprehensive charts, graphs and similar information in the extensive appendices that are also provided. All this makes not just for a book, but for a near tomb of information that can be read again and again. As big as it is, I would sooner throw out a pair of good shoes than demote it from pride of place in my traveller's backpack.
The most obvious thing about Europe: A History is that it doesn't ignore significant chunks of Europe! Many writers on Europe - Roberts included - focus so much on Western Europe (Germany, France, and especially England) that recently converted arm-chair historians could be forgiven for thinking that the rest of Europe never existed until post WWI. For example, Roberts practically sums up the whole of Poland prior to WWI in just one page [p. 177], and the impression given is that Russia was always Poland's elder brother and often rightly its political dictator. In this example, Davies demonstrates just how significant and advanced a kingdom Poland-Lithuania was, and this was when Muscovite Russia was still paying tribute to the tartars in Kazan.
But although Davies loves Poland, he doesn't make the mistake of forgetting about the other players too. Russia is still probably covered more extensively (her history having had more of an impact on the whole of Europe), however none but perhaps the very smallest of countries doesn't get her fair share of recognition. A one volume history cannot set out to cover every single detail and historical happening. Naturally, Davies' aim is to discuss key events that have shaped Europe into what she is today (as they have shaped much of the world), but through his style of chapters, capsules, summaries and appendices, he also succeeds at capturing many small glimpses of another side of Europe that is normally neglected within a book of such scope. Davies writes with more than just historical authority, he uses a well-trained imagination to create a text that is wholly more real and personal. My own imagination began to run totally wild, and for the several months that it took me to complete the book (I'm a slow, but I like to think a 'thorough' and 'methodical', reader) I practically lived European history from the start of every discussion to the end of every dream. If you read only one book on Europe, let it be this one. If you have already read other books on (or covering) Europe, then you have done well to save the best to last.
|
|
|
Jeff Morseburg (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-27 00:00>
Every serious reader can use a panoramic single-volume history of Europe and its civilization. Norman Davies' Europe: A History is absolutely sweeping in its scope, taking the reader from the Ice Age to the present day. This book is beautifully written and despite the enormous ground that it covers, it maintains a strong narrative drive. Norman Davies is erudite and incredibly well read and each page bristles with interesting facts and despite the necessity of compressing so much history into thirteen hundred pages, there is a surprising amount of detail. Like all good synthesizers, he has an eye for the telling anecdote, the little vignette that contributes to the narrative. Davies' work has hundreds of such asides and his work is full of triumph and pathos, irony and humor - as it is the story of man and Western Civilization. There are plenty of well-written sidebars that are short dissertations on historical figures, philosophical concepts, laws or wars, issues that may have distracted from the narrative, but that serve to illuminate the text. Overall, Europe: A History is an exceptional work of brevity and compression. While few of us will read it from cover to cover, it's of great use for those of us who want a single volume to refer to, to understand what an exceptional scholar feels is most important about historical events and epochs.
|
|
|
Gallowglass (MSL quote), UK
<2007-01-27 00:00>
This book has several useful features, one of which is its immense size (the Christian Science Monitor weighed it in at 3 pounds, 14 ounces), which will make it useful for dropping on the next overbearing know-it-all that uses the phrase, Western Civilization. Another useful feature - suitable for the same use - is the extensive Introduction in which the author dissects the various variants of the historiography of Europe, with unfavorable results, and trashes the concepts of traditional European history and Western civilization.
In tackling the history of the continent, Davies brings to bear his own expertise in Polish history, to forcibly drag the center of gravity of his subject East. As a result, Europe filled my own long-felt need to see East European history in conjunction with the Western European history covered in overviews of medieval history and in the schools. But this is by no means a reference book; it is not meant to be used to look up facts and figures. Instead, it is an absorbing, fluidly written volume that not only includes sidelights, vignettes, and descriptive passages, but a series of 'capsules' that tackle (not always well, admittedly) various cultural subjects.
Davies points out, before beginning, that the writing of history - including his own - is necessarily distorted; the best one can hope for is the clarity that develops from multiple viewpoints. He is fond of untidy, sprawling portrayals, replete with conflict, of each era. The intended reader is obviously someone who has some knowledge of history of the traditional kind, and this is most obvious in the post-period sections where his coverage is obviously directed against historiographical controversies that have raged in modern newspapers.
Europe has earned both very positive and a few very negative reviews. The accuracy of certain dates and of specific facts and figures has been questioned (though a quick look in the Britannica clears some of these up, and Davies himself says that those pointed out have been corrected in the paperback edition), especially by those whose reviews indicate that their personal oxen have been gored, or at least chafed.
One negative reviewer pointed out that Davies ignores the "relatively modest contribution which Slavonic culture in general, and Russian culture in particular, has made compared with the more positive achievements of European civilization such as parliamentary democracy, intellectual tolerance, religious freedom, the rule of law, the creation of the welfare state, equality of treatment for men and women, and the improvement of life brought about by pure and applied science." (Since he goes to great pains to show that none of these are exclusive creations of Western Europe, one wonders about the reviewer.) Theodore Rabb's comments in a New York Times review (in which Rabb says he did not finish skimming, let alone reading, the book) were extensively polemical. Repeatedly, Davies is called an anti-Semite for 'trivializing the Holocaust'; readers will have to peruse his coverage and decide that for themselves.
The volume IS biased-- Davies appears in the guise of a Polophile, pro-EU, anti-Muscovite, anti-Nationalist generally Christian historian who believes that man's inhumanity to man is a continuing theme in history. (Some of that may be as a result of cursorily covering subjects with which we are familiar, such as the horrors of the Catholic Inquisition, and giving more detail to things which are less well-known, such as the persecution of Protestants by other Protestants.) Those who are interested in British History will, I'm afraid, get short shrift-- even the English Civil War is downgraded to an essentially local conflict, and Good Queen Bess is almost ignored. His coverage of Russian history is likewise spotty, partly because he slights those parts of the 'former Soviet Union' that are not part of Europe proper. In fact, in some ways, the whole coverage of history is spotty, due to Davies' attempts to portray history in all its messiness and to make an engaging storyline with minimal imposition of theoretical perspectives on the subject.
But the most striking point of the whole volume is an undertone that those of us who are interested in East European history will recognize, an overtone of irritation of Douglas Adamsian proportions, which, if it does not 'span the whole of time and space in its infinite umbrage', does cover Europe with a thin layer of peckiness. It is the irritation of someone whose field of study is one of those not only overlooked by one's colleagues but also slammed on a regular basis. As a result, Davies places a somewhat undue emphasis on Poland-Lithuania and Eastern European affairs in general, and he takes a stand in covering the events of the Holocaust and the other genocides in modern Eastern Europe that got him into trouble. |
|
|
Greg Lynn (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-27 00:00>
Norman Davies, an English Professor of History, has done a brilliant job with this work. Covering virtually every aspect of European history in an immense single volume (some 1400 or so pages) from Prehistory to the Present, Davies presents an incredible panorama over several million years of how Europe formed, evolved, and eventually became the world's powerhouse of civilisation and culture.
The book's strongest feature is its sheer comprehensive coverage of Europe. Virtually every people and nation (past and present) of historical importance, from Albania to Greece, is covered in excellent detail. Europe's geographical features (and how these influenced history) are explained in exquisite detail. Virtually every important field of human endeavour, from Art to the Olympic Games, is given great and fascinating historical perspective. Europe's historical figures are also examined, as are their often strange peculiarities, from Copernicus to Cathernine the Great.
The wonderful book is also complemented by excellent maps and 'sidebar' essays. The essays, structured much like a hyperlink, explain some interesting nuance, concept, or historical figure mentioned in the main text in some detail. Davies manages to balance these features just correctly so they don't become too much of a distraction, yet cannot be ignored by the reader.
This book is strongly recommended as a good introduction to European history.
|
|
|
Richard Carlton (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-27 00:00>
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. |
|
|
Charles Fry (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-27 00:00>
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.
(A negative review. MSL remarks.)
|
|
|
A Reader (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-27 00:00>
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."
|
|
|
A reader (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-27 00:00>
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. |
|
|
Theodore Raab (The New York Times Book Review) (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-27 00:00>
... an eccentric but often vigorously written introduction to the European past, enlivened with telling insights, apt quotations and excellent quick overviews of such topics as the Crusades and the Hanseatic League... |
|
|
Publishers Weekly (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-27 00:00>
The pre-eminent scholar of Polish history, Davies (God's Playground and Heart of Europe) expands his focus to all of Europe. While the book is bulky, its size is hardly adequate to a complete history of the continent from pre-history to the dismantling of the Soviet Union. In addition, as one might expect, Davies has taken great pains to treat countries other than England, France and Germany as legitimate parts of Europe?not just as the thresholds over which barbarians crossed. ("For some reason it has been the fashion among some historians to minimize the impact of the Magyars," Davies writes when discussing what would become central Europe. "All this means is that the Magyars did not reach Cambridge.") The book works because his subject is not the constituent countries but the continent as a whole. Thus, while Elizabeth I gets one brief mention in passing, Aristide Briand, the French foreign minister who tried to effect a Franco-German reconciliation until the Nazis won power, gets several paragraphs. Aside from defining what Europe is and giving all countries their due, Davies also tries to show the joys of an inclusive reading of historical subjects (he disparages excessive specialization and writes admiringly of the Annales school). A master of broad-brushstroke synthesis, Davies navigates through the larger historical currents with the detail necessary to a well-written engaging narrative.
|
|
|
|
1 2 | Total 2 pages 11 items |
|
|
|
|
|
|
