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Europe: A History (平装)
by Norman Davies
| Category:
Europe history, History of civilization |
| Market price: ¥ 278.00
MSL price:
¥ 258.00
[ Shop incentives ]
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| 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. |
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AllReviews |
  1 2 Total 2 pages 11 items |
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Gordon Duus (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-27 00:00>
I decided to read this book to get a broad overview of the great expanse of European history. I always had a strong interest in the topic, having traveled to many of the cities in Europe that are popular with tourists. I had read many books on certain aspects of European history, including on ancient Greece, the Renaissance, the world wars, art history, the middle ages and France. But I wanted a book to help synthesize what I knew into a larger context. Norman Davies's Europe was exactly what I had in mind.
In twelve chapters, Davies covers the history of Europe. Starting with prehistory, he covers ancient Greece, the Roman empire, the early Middle Ages, the high Middle Ages, the late Middle Ages, the Renaissance and Reformation, the Enlightenment, the French Revolution, the Nineteenth Century, the two world wars, and the post war period. As ambitious an undertaking as this was, Davies was largely successful. He attempted to avoid the usual focus on England, France, Italy and Germany, by also using Eastern European or other less well known examples to illustrate his points.
This is no easy read. Being in the style of a well written college textbook, it requires concentration and focus to get through. I found I could not read it before bed at night without falling asleep, so I ended up reading it mostly on weekend afternoons. I started reading the book in 1997 and finished it almost a decade later. I would try to read an entire chapter at a time, and then take a break for a while. It was an enjoyable marathon.
Davies breaks up the narrative by inserting hundreds of capsules, which are relatively brief discussions on interesting topics incidental to the main story, such as alchemy, brie, the olympic games, bibles, Nostradamus and the Tour de France. At first, I tried to read them as they appeared in the text, but found the constant interruptions to the flow of the story too distracting. Thereafter, I just skipped over them until the end of the chapter and then went back and read them in succession. That made them more enjoyable.
Trying to cover the entire history of Europe in one volume means lots of skipping over topics which could take up an entire book on their own. For example, Michelangelo basically gets one long sentence in this book. But Davies delivered the overall context to European history that I wanted. And it has definitely increased my interest in reading books that focus on specific aspects of this vast story. |
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1 2 Total 2 pages 11 items |
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