Europe: A History

Citation

Davies, N. (1996). Europe: A History. Oxford University Press.

Chapter Summary

Davies tells the story of Europe in a single volume of 1,365 pages, from prehistory to the present, and gives the East of the continent a place that general histories often deny it. The publisher's description presents the book as a chronological and geographical grid on which Europe's dramas are played, and as a deliberately varied reading experience. Each chapter carries a selection of short "capsules" that illustrate narrower themes cutting across the chronology, and each ends with a wide-angle "snapshot" of the whole continent at one moment. The contents list shows twelve chapters, followed by back matter that begins around page 1057.

Chapter 1 (pages 1–46)

The opening chapter is the widest in time. According to the publisher, it explores the first five million years of the continent's evolution, before historical Europe begins.

Chapters 2–10 (pages 47–758)

The middle chapters carry the narrative forward in chronological order. Each closes with one of the twelve snapshots, described by the publisher as freezing the frame at a symbolic moment: Knossos in 1628 BC, Constantinople in AD 330 and Nuremberg in 1945 are the examples it gives. The reviewer Theodore Rabb notes that these chapter endings devote half a dozen or more pages to a particular event, such as the siege of Syracuse in 212 BC.

Chapters 11–12 (pages 759–1056)

The last two chapters cover the twentieth century and are the longest in the book. The publisher says the book zooms in from the distant focus of Chapter 1 to the close focus of these two chapters. Davies treats the twentieth century against what he calls the "Allied scheme of history", and throughout he tries to avoid the bias of "Western Civilization", which neglects Eastern Europe.

Capsules and appendices

The capsules are insertions of one paragraph to over two pages. Rabb counted 301; the publisher's description gives 201, and other accounts say almost three hundred. The capsule titles are often playful and they are heavily cross-referenced. A series of appendices follows the narrative, and the bibliographical references begin at page 1137.

Key Concepts

Structure

• Capsules: short self-contained pieces on topics from "Rufinus" (a piece on Oxford University Press) to "Philibeg" (kilts) and the names of inns, inserted into the narrative.
• Snapshots: the twelve panoramic overviews that end the chapters.
• Chronological grid: the continuous narrative on which the capsules and snapshots hang.

Approach

• Eastern Europe in the frame: a deliberate correction of what Davies calls the bias of "Western Civilization".
• The stateless nation: the publisher's phrase for attention to peoples without states alongside nation-states.
• Allied scheme of history: Davies's label for the conventional account of the Second World War and its aftermath that he sets out to challenge.

Critical Analysis

Strengths

• Scope and structure. The book covers the whole continent and its whole history, with the capsule-and-snapshot device offering variety and allowing separate entry points. Rabb credited it with excellent quick overviews of subjects such as the Crusades and the Hanseatic League.
• Attention to the East. Rabb notes that Davies is an expert in Polish history, an area rarely given prominence in such surveys, and the book gives Eastern Europe and minority communities more space than is usual.
• Commercial and readerly success. The book appeared on bestseller lists in London for several months.

Limitations

• Accuracy. Rabb's review in The New York Times is scathing: he reports finding inaccuracies, in his count, on average every other page, and says this undermined the book as a source of information. Readers should therefore check facts against other works.
• Contested judgments. Anne Applebaum's review notes that Davies attacks earlier historians in strong language, and his comparison of the Otwock police battalion's crimes with Jewish participation in postwar Communist security forces drew criticism; Davies replied that he had juxtaposed, not equated. Stephen Wheatcroft disputed his figures on Stalinist repression.
• Length and personal style. Rabb found the book too personal and allusive for students and too long-winded for the general reader, and the index inadequate. He also found the visual arts thinly treated.

Where It Fits in the Course

In the modern European history course, Davies is the longest survey and the one with the most distinctive voice. Merriman's A History of Modern Europe is a comprehensive survey from the Renaissance to the present, Mason's A Concise History of Modern Europe is a brief survey organised around liberty, equality and solidarity, and Evans's The Pursuit of Power is a volume of the Penguin History of Europe that covers 1815–1914 in depth. Doyle's The French Revolution: A Very Short Introduction is a short account of one turning point, and The Making of the West and Western Civilizations are textbooks with a broader Western frame.

Davies is most useful as a wide-ranging companion read, for context, for the capsules on particular topics and for the Eastern European perspective, and less suitable as the only authoritative source for a fact.

How to Use This Book

Davies suits readers who want a panoramic, opinionated history of Europe and are prepared to read critically. It is not a textbook to read in order: dip into the chapters that match a course, use the snapshots as period overviews, and read the capsules as short essays. With a course on modern Europe, the chapters covering the periods studied are the core, and the first chapters are optional background.

Treat the book as an argument to test. Compare its account of a topic with a standard textbook, check dates and names before using them in an essay, and read the reviews by Rabb and Applebaum, which set out the dispute over the book.