Rating: 
Summary: Disappointing because it is subjective
Review: I find this book dissappointing cause it is subjective just like some other people said. I dont want some so-called "author's" view of why something suposely happened but the real truth and Norman Davy is biassed! He is always writing about how eastern Europe are important, maybe more important than western Europe this offends me and is stupid! Why can't he be like all the other true books about Europe that France and England are the most important ones. My ancesters come from England with the pigrims and and some from France. What makes Norman Davy so special he can disagree with importan historians? This should not be allowed! Maybe he shold look at a map of Europe and see Poland is labaled eastern Uerope before he tries to write another book that is so stupid. Maybe he should read history books from school to learn how stupid he is! THe book is also to long and stupid.
Rating: 
Summary: Superficially looks OK, but...
Review: This is a rampling, disorganized and idiosyncratic history. Further, the author's biases taint his presentation. If you want a superior volume check out J.M. Roberts.
Rating: 
Summary: An undertaking....
Review: Davies in this book sets out to do something that not many other people would try: to turn the highly documented and politicized morass that is the story of Europe into a coherent whole. By and large, he does this-- reason enough for a fairly good review....This is a highly readable, fairly well researched attempt at putting forward an introduction to the history of Europe in one volume. On the whole, Davies succeeds at presenting a fair and balanced accounting; one must allow that in a place where ties and scars run deep, on many issues, he feels for a middle ground where none lies (a critic below hints at this regarding the USSR). I, too, find the blurbs that he insterts totally infuriating and determental to the flow of the book; perhaps that, for some, would be a good thing because it keeps the stream from being overwhelming. It's a neat book though it suffers from lots of problems that are associated with a) very long books and b) books that are grand visions. It's a totally worthwhile read for someone who is interested in an attempt to tie together many of the lose strings that are European history....
Rating: 
Summary: So Much History, So Little Space
Review: Having searched for an exhaustive survey of European history to buttress my spotty grasp of the subject, I thought I'd found it with this book. Starting out with the primordial ooze, Professor Davies takes 1136 pages to lead us chronologically from there around all of the continent's many subregions right into the current events of the post-Soviet era. He tries very hard not to leave anything out. Thinking about the scope of the material now, it's clear to me why I shouldn't have been looking for such a book in the first place and why, for his part, Mr. Davies should not have misdirected his considerable talents into writing it: there is simply too much territory for any single volume to cover! One has to wonder what audience the author was aiming at. In his introduction he himself points out that he's introducing no new facts or fresh insights, limiting the value to serious students of the subject. However, casual students - such as myself - are going to be frustrated by the light touch with which everything is passed over. Pick pretty much at random any page and you'll find references to half a dozen or more names or events, very few of which are fleshed out at all before it's time on the next page to move onto another century or a different region of this diverse continent. The author seems to assume a pre-knowledge which, if the reader has, obviates the need for a book of this type, and herein lies the contradiction on which I'm afraid it founders. One approach he might have taken is to trace unifying themes throughout the history, but there's little of this - maybe such themes don't exist - and by the end of the book, the reader is left holding something of a hollow shell. Mr. Davies compounds the problem by devoting maybe 20% of his already constrained space to little 1/4 to 2-page out-of-context vignettes on subjects like medieval torture, the biblical Book of Revelation, or European ballet. Some of these are entertaining enough in their own right, others boring, but being boxed off from and unrelated the surrounding text, they all serve mainly to aggravate the already rather cumbersome flow of the history. On the positive side, Mr. Davies is obviously a highly knowledgeable historian and a good writer. However, he should have either applied himself to a multi-volume study, or else picked a fragment of this massive history and shed some real light on it.
Rating:
Summary: Legends of the Evil Empire
Review: This grandiose overview of European history is for the most part tedious with its herky-jerky Internet(gee-whiz) inspired boxes of information niblets and its extremely irritating vertical maps; but at the end it becomes an unbelievably propagandistic right-wing diatribe against Russia and the Soviet Union. The Great Legends of Post-modern, Post- Soviet Western History are all here culminating with of course Stalin's 50 million victims. (That fictional,endlessly repeated factoid of the Cold War) Most of the book is relatively well researched with reputable references; however the parts on the Soviet Union under Stalin basically have one reference- the works of Robert Conquest, Cold War propagandist turned "historian". Why not just use the speeches of Joseph Goebbels for reference? This book is really a vehicle which very skilfully makes the grievances of eastern Europeans into history. Hatred of Russia and especially the Soviets virtually drips from the author's pen.(thus we find out that Western Powers weren't really trying to destroy Soviet Russia in the 20s with the help of Poles and Czechs and Germans and that everything that happened back then was the fault of "war communism" of the Bolsheviks). Ironically Mr. Davies considers himself a great debunker of exaggerated body counts yet he unflinchingly passes along the 50 MILLION (come on!)victims of Stalin as proven fact and then goes on to paint the Post-Stalin Soviets with the same brush. Communism has to be much worse than Fascism. This book is one of what I'm sure will be many which perpetuate all the Cold War myths well into the 21st century. ,
Rating:
Summary: Decent Attempt
Review: Grand synthetic history is usually tough to write, and to read. Davies more or less succeeds in telling the story of "Europe," and it certainly passes muster for the general reader. Nonetheless, the book has some faults, particularly Davies' silly insistence that Poland is the center of Europe, the world, and the universe. But it's an easy read, entertaining, and Davies has an interesting take on things.
Rating: 
Summary: Breathtaking
Review: Norman Davies is clearly confident that his view of history in general and history of Europe in particular is more interesting and probably more valid than many others who have approached these topics. I surmise that his view of history is that it is an argument to be waged, about the larger patterns and the more subtle threads, rather than a simple telling of the episodes and icons which later political entities have enshrined into myths that serve the ends of governance. On this score, Davies would not be unique. But in telling the history of Europe with this approach, he has undertaken a topic of so enormous a scope such that the scholarship would have to be breathtakingly manifest and the arguement would have to be breathtakingly persistant and persuasive. And he pulls it off. What emerges is a wonderfully constructed version of European history that seems connected across time and space. I found myself both stimalated and inspired.
Rating:
Summary: An amazing achievement
Review: The idea of a one-volume history of Europe is thought of as a unheard of among academic circles. However, it is only unheard of among those who have not seen this book. It is an amazing broad sweep of the themes of western civilization. Granted, it doesn't contain EVERYTHING, but its still an invaluble source for anyone researching European history. The sidebars are helpful as well. It is also printed very nicely, in a very contemporaty typeface that is easy to read. NO EYE STRAIN! Is this an academic reference that does not cause eye strain? YES. College students, by this, you'll need it. Professors, buy this, for 27 dollars you can't go wrong.
Rating:
Summary: Davies Misses the Boat
Review: Huge, Dense and Fun in an excruciating kind of way, but Davies assertion that Poland is central to Europe or European culture or tradition (in any sense other than geographical) is dead wrong, perhaps he should look just a little to the west. In attemping to "define" Europe - 'what makes Europe European?' - he misses again! Maybe the Celto-Germanic-Slavic ethnic/racial continuum and it's roots in a common kinship, culture and religious tradition might shed some light there, Norm. Lastly, it's hard to believe that "serious scholors" will flirt with the notion that the Greek tradition owes so much to imports from the Middle East, perhaps Norm forgot to read his Hesiod. The strongest qualities in this work are the energies spent on the 'Volkerwanderung' and the great "capsules" full of tastey tidbits. If you already have this one - keep it for the shelf, if not join the ranks of the Grand-European-History-Hunters.
Rating:
Summary: This book needs a spanish portuguese review
Review: I think that this book needs a review of the portuguese and spanish names, for example: Matto Grosso has only one "t", so the correct name is Mato Grosso, page 580. Page xiv Fátima is located near Compostella, and it is wrong. Fátima is in Portugal not in Spain. Another mistake Goncalvez has ç not c. Gonçalvez. Sorry for this coments, but this book as a excellent book needs a next edition portuguese, spanish review. Thank you! Professor Paulo R. Sousa.
|
