A sweeping, illustrated history of Europe--a continent whose imperial
ambitions, internal clashes, and existential threats are as vital today
as they were during the conquests of Alexander the Great
In just a few hundred years, a modest peninsula off the northwest corner
of Asia has seen the rise and fall of several empires; served as the
crucible for scientific dynamism, cultural innovation, and economic
revolution; and witnessed cataclysms and bloodshed that have almost
destroyed it several times over. This is Europe: a continent whose
identity emerged not so much by virtue of geographic or ethnic
continuity, but by a long and storied struggle for power.
Studded with infamous figures--from Caesar to Charlemagne and
Machiavelli to Marx--Simon Jenkins's history of Europe travels briskly
from the Roman Empire, the Dark Ages, and the Reformation through the
French Revolution, the World Wars, and the fall of the USSR. What
emerges in this thrilling and expansive telling is a continent as
defined by its continually clashing cultural identities and violent
crises as it is by its tireless drive for a society based on the consent
of the governed -- which holds true right up to the present day.
