Europe
A New History
Format:Hardback
Publisher:Penguin Books Ltd
Publishing:26th Mar '26
£30.00
This title is due to be published on 26th March, and will be despatched as soon as possible.
A new history of the idea of Europe from Ancient Greece to the present
What do we think we mean by ‘Europe’? If it cannot be defined by geography alone, is it bound by history, by its politics, by a shared culture? In this perception-changing book, historian Roderick Beaton reconfigures the entire history of Europe, from its distant beginnings to today, as the story of an idea.
Since its birth in ancient Greece, Europe has been defined, and redefined, by its people. Through this powerful lens, Beaton deftly surveys Europe’s major historical developments over 2,500 years, ending with the war in Ukraine. His focus is not on regions or nation states, but always on the continent as a whole, so that it appears in the sharpest outline. Throughout, Europe: A New History draws on original sources to allow the voices of the past, from Tacitus to Thatcher, to speak for themselves.
The story of Europe’s people is, Beaton shows us, as much about shared, and changing, identities as about great or wicked deeds, pitched battles, invasions or revolutions. Exploring the multilayered identities that have always come with being European, this wise, vital work places the Europe of today in the long arc of history, and lets us see it anew.
Praise for Roderick Beaton's previous book Greece: Biography of a Modern Nation * - *
The best history of Greece around... Beautifully written and packed with insights about the culture and the people. I will be dipping into this book for the rest of my life -- Victoria Hislop * The Week *
Beaton's new book - judicious, well-researched and commendably up-to-date - deserves to be the standard general history of modern Greece in English for years to come * Financial Times *
A perceptive analysis of Greece's financial crisis, the embers of which continue to threaten to derail the single currency project of the EU * Country Life *
This book explores the history, not of a Greece of romantic or philhellenic imagination, but the reality of the country as it has become today. The empathy it evokes for the survival of modern Greek statehood against a recurring pattern of often existential crisis is all the more compelling, subtle and above all human in its many-sidedness. Beaton's account instantly becomes the single most outstanding treatment of its subject -- Professor Robert Holland
A wonderfully engaging narrative... It is a superb achievement and to be recommended to anyone with even the most rudimentary interest -- Professor Kevin Featherstone
ISBN: 9780241624500
Dimensions: 240mm x 156mm x 40mm
Weight: 750g
432 pages