Rating: 
Summary: Redressing a balance
Review: Modern historiography has a tendency to be highly abstract. Events themselves take a back seat to trends; themes replace actual motivations of living, breathing people. It is seen as more scientific (whether reasonably or not) to view movements of peoples and states in statistical terms. The oldest form of history -- the narrative -- has fallen into some amount of discredit.There are some of us who deplore this development, since we see in the story itself -- the whole snarled skein of the events, the characters, the people -- a kind of richness and complexity that cannot ever be present in any pure distillation of that story along abstract lines. Accordingly I welcome Prof. Merriman's new modern European history. It is suitably analytical where it needs to be, but unlike some other classic standards (Palmer and Colton, for example, comes to mind), it tends not to depart from the story of the events or to fragment that story excessively. For long stretches he is content to let that story tell itself. This puts it in a rare cluster of modern historical textbooks that presents at least the ingredient of narrative while still being written with a mature and discerning reader in mind.
Rating:
Summary: comprehensive text, objective, well put-together
Review: This is a well-wrought text, written from a modern perspective. The sentences are somewhat choppy and terse, but this is mainly to establish an objective tone. This survey covers a huge range of concepts, people, events and countries, but puts them together in a cohesive way. The author has a modern, fairly well-cultured personality judging from his style and presentation. The text itself is rather biased; the author seems to assemble facts together such that conclusions drawn from them constitute the framework of a "modern" late-20th-century post-Berlin-wall perspective and paradigm for evaluating, in hindsite, 20th century European history. Now, this paradigm that he subtly promotes is a fairly responsible and professional one, but one should keep in mind, in spite of its objective and reasonably-fair tone, this book reflects the views of a dissident late-20th century intellectual. Judging by Merriman's inclusion (and, by implication, promotion) of Picasso, Klimpt and Munch paintings in the color illustrations in the book, he harbors an intense contempt at the "savagery" of 20th century history, and tries to instill such views in his reader, to the extent that he can, while still creating an objective-sounding, fairly well-balanced history book.
Rating:
Summary: comprehensive text, objective, well put-together
Review: This is a well-wrought text, written from a modern perspective. The sentences are somewhat choppy and terse, but this is mainly to establish an objective tone. This survey covers a huge range of concepts, people, events and countries, but puts them together in a cohesive way. The author has a modern, fairly well-cultured personality judging from his style and presentation. The text itself is rather biased; the author seems to assemble facts together such that conclusions drawn from them constitute the framework of a "modern" late-20th-century post-Berlin-wall perspective and paradigm for evaluating, in hindsite, 20th century European history. Now, this paradigm that he subtly promotes is a fairly responsible and professional one, but one should keep in mind, in spite of its objective and reasonably-fair tone, this book reflects the views of a dissident late-20th century intellectual. Judging by Merriman's inclusion (and, by implication, promotion) of Picasso, Klimpt and Munch paintings in the color illustrations in the book, he harbors an intense contempt at the "savagery" of 20th century history, and tries to instill such views in his reader, to the extent that he can, while still creating an objective-sounding, fairly well-balanced history book.
Rating:
Summary: A Comprehensive Textbook
Review: This textbook is excellent. It provides an in-peth analysis of European History, without being too in depth. It provides information on many subjects, including culture, art, politics, and religion. The book is a worthy investment for all who are studying European History.
Rating:
Summary: a love of history
Review: you only have to read the preface of this book to know how much john merriman loves history: reading it, writing it and teaching it. I was fortunate to take two courses with him, and his enthusiasm for history, not only battles and dates and names, but people, and stories, and food and wine, made a historian of me. His book reads like he teaches--full of interesting anecdotes, thoughtful analysis of greater trends, and an abundance of knowledge.
Rating:
Summary: a love of history
Review: you only have to read the preface of this book to know how much john merriman loves history: reading it, writing it and teaching it. I was fortunate to take two courses with him, and his enthusiasm for history, not only battles and dates and names, but people, and stories, and food and wine, made a historian of me. His book reads like he teaches--full of interesting anecdotes, thoughtful analysis of greater trends, and an abundance of knowledge.
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