A Short History of Europe

Simon Jenkins's single-volume history tells how Europe went from warring peoples to a place of peace, wealth and freedom. The story moves through Greece and Rome, the Dark Ages and the Reformation to the French Revolution, the two world wars, the fall of the USSR and the present. Figures range from Julius Caesar, Charlemagne, Machiavelli and Marx to Joan of Arc, Wellington and Angela Merkel, with Aristotle, Shakespeare and Picasso among the cultural names. Jenkins argues that European identity grew less from shared geography or ethnicity than from a long struggle for power, marked by violent crises and by a steady push toward government by consent. Jenkins tells the whole story as one chronological narrative.

Michael Woodward, founder of jumbleThink, endorsed it for the sound judgments of a sensible, readable commentator.