Europe: East and West by Norman Davies
While I ages ago got my hands on Davies best-known work ‘Europe:A History’, I’ve had some trouble getting through it - mainly because in its hardcover edition its the sort of book you could beat someone to death with. However, I recently came across a copy of what I suppose is best described as its ’sister’ or ‘companion’ book - ‘Europe: East and West’. For those of you with a general interest in European history, essay-style short articles or looking for a present for that history fan in your life its a definite purchase.
What Davies does in this book is provide some greater explanation and depth to many of the topics he covered in ‘Europe’ - especially his (not incorrect) contention that when we speak of ‘Europe’ we need to include to a greater degree those parts of the European continent that extend past Germany. But this book is not just one historian ranting about his hobby; Davies covers such topics as ‘England and the myths surrounding England and ‘Britain’, the place of both Muslims and Jews in history (not always the horror story that both are usually presented as) and even things like the entertaining story of how Poles and Germans (despite modern propaganda) actually get on quite well all things considered.
The only major flaw with the book that I could find was that while some of the ideas presented within the book are interesting - especially the call for greater emphasis on ‘complete’ European history as well as a greater amount of attention being given towards prevailing national myths (and their often harmful side-effects), some of them are well, unteachable. Or at least would be very difficult to do justice too. For example; while a greater awareness of ‘complete’ European history would all-in-all be a good thing, to do so would make even college courses too broad. As it was this year my European history course was extremely large - and that was just covering some Irish, some British and specific sections of French, German and colonial history. In many ways, to teach an inclusive model as envisioned by Davies would require a 3year degree (at least) in a few specific subjects.
But for the most part the book is quite interesting, filled with lots of interesting facts, like the fact that the biggest single terrorist attack in Israel was committed by Jews (the bombing of the King David hotel) or that Hungary was the second-largest Catholic realm of the Medieval era (which is part of his argument for why the way European history should be thought more inclusively, but anyway).
The titles of many of the chapters should give one a fairly good idea of the topics covered - here’s a short sample;
Western Civilisation versus European History
Not Forever England
1000 Years of Polish-German Camaraderie
The Politics of History
Included in this is my personal favorite essay - ‘Not Forever England’ dealing with amongst other things the fact that Charles (should he ever become king) should be ‘Charles the 1st’ not ‘Charles the 3rd’ as he will be the first king of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, not the third king of England and that English people are not the natives of the British Isles, the only natives are the Welsh, who arrived sometime in prehistory. Frankly I’ve never seen a more entertaining demolition of a countries national myths.
But don’t let that somewhat jokey last paragraph of mine give you the impression that Davies is in any way approaching his work taking the piss. The history in this book is quite serious but done very well and in a very readable style. Its well worth a look for anyone interested in a good and easily read history book.