Further Reading

Several people who read this book in typescript asked if I could recommend a few books on some of the subjects I discuss. The English-language titles below are chosen for being based on serious research but nonetheless accessible to the general reader. (The date in brackets is generally that of first publication; if a second date is given, it will be either the particular translation or a substantially revised second edition.) Needless to say, my list is highly selective. You can find other interesting avenues to pursue via the Source Notes.

Chapter 1. Lunchtime Europe

• Nicholas Crane, Mercator: The Man Who Mapped the Planet (2002)
• Jane Rogoyska, Hotel Exile: Paris in the Shadow of War (2026)

Chapter 2. Geographical Europe

• Tim Flannery, Europe: The First 100 Million Years (2018)
• Barry Cunliffe, Europe between the Oceans 9000 BC – AD 1000 (2008)
• Barry Cunliffe, The Extraordinary Voyage of Pytheas the Greek (2001)
• Neil Price, The Children of Ash and Elm: A History of the Vikings (2020)
• Felipe Fernández-Armesto, 1492: The Year Our World Began (2010)
• John Reader, The Untold History of the Potato (2009)
• David S Landes, The Unbound Prometheus: Technological Change and Industrial Development in Western Europe From 1750 to the Present (1969/2003)
• Peter Frankopan, The Earth Transformed: An Untold Story (2023)

Chapter 3. Historical Europe

• Roderick Beaton, Europe: A New History (2026)
• J M Roberts, A History of Europe (1996)
• Brendan Simms, Europe: The Struggle for Supremacy, 1453 to the Present (2013)
• Norman Davies, Europe: A History (1996)
• Felipe Fernández-Armesto, The Times Illustrated History of Europe (1995)
• Herodotus, The Histories, translated by Tom Holland, introduced by Paul Cartledge (450-430 BCE/ 2013)

Rome

• Catherine Fletcher, The Roads to Rome: A Journey into Europe's Past (2024)
• Julia M H Smith, Europe after Rome: A New Cultural History 500-1000 (2005)
• Judith Herrin, Byzantium: The Surprising Life of a Mediaeval Empire (2007)
• Walter Scheidel, Escape from Rome: The Failure of Empire and the Road to Prosperity (2019)

Christianity

• Tom Holland, Dominion: The Making of the Western Mind (2019)
• Diarmaid MacCullough, A History of Christianity: The First Thrlie Thousand Years (2009)
• Denys Hay, Europe: the Emergence of an Idea (1957)
• Larry Siedentop, Inventing the Individual: The Origins of Western Liberalism (2014)

Enlightenment

• Dorinda Outram, The Enlightenment (1995/2019)
• Roy Porter, The Enlightenment (2001)
• David Wootton, The Invention of Science: A New History of the Scientific Revolution (2016)
• Edward Gibbon, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, edited and abridged by David Womersley (1776-88/2000)
• Immanuel Kant, What is Enlightenment? (1784)
• Montesquieu, Persian Letters (1721)
• Voltaire, Candide (1759)

Empires

• John Darwin, After Tamerlane: The Global History of Empire since 1405 (2007)
• John Elliott, Empires of the Atlantic World: Britain and Spain in America, 1492-1830 (2006)
• Dominic Lieven, Empire: The Russian Empire and Its Rivals (2001)
• Adam Hochschild, King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror and Heroism in Colonial Africa (1998/2006)
• Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness (1902)
• Joseph Roth, The Radetzky March (1932)
• Johny Pitts, Afropean: Notes from Black Europe (2020)

Countries

• Ernest Renan, What Is a Nation? (1882)
• Ernest Gellner, Nations and Nationalism (1983)
• Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger eds, The Invention of Tradition (1983)
• Linda Colley, Britons: Forging the Nation (1992)

Cities

• Mogens Herman Hansen, Polis: An Introduction to the Ancient Greek City-State (2006)
• Trevor Dean and Daniel Waley, The Italian City Republics (2022)
• Peter Ackroyd, London: The Biography (2001)

Wars

• Michael Howard, War in European History (1976/2009)
• Ian Morris, War – What Is It Good for? The Role of Conflict in Civilisation from Primates to Robots (2014)
• Michael Howard, The Invention of Peace: Reflections on War and International Order (2000)
• Stella Ghervas, Conquering Peace: From the Enlightenment to the European Union (2021)

Revolutions

• Simon Schama, Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution (1989)
• Christopher Clark, Revolutionary Spring: Fighting for a New World, 1848-18li9 (2023)
• Robert Service, Lenin: A Biography (2000)
• Timothy Garton Ash, The Magic Lantern: The Revolution of '89 Witnessed in Warsaw, Budapest, Berlin and Prague (1990)

Migrations

• Johannes Krause & Thomas Trappe, A Short History of Humanity: How Migration Made Us Who We Are (2021)
• Peter Gatrell, The Unsettling of Europe: The Great Migration, 1945 to the Present (2019)
• Philipp Ther, The Outsiders: Refugees in Europe since 1492 (2019)

Individuals

• Nicholas Shakespeare, Six Minutes in May: How Churchill Unexpectedly Became Prime Minister (2017)
• Simon Shuster, The Showman: The Inside Story of the Invasion That Shook the World and Made a Leader of Volodymyr Zelensky (2024)
• J P Stern, Hitler: The Führer and the People (1975)

Chapter 4. Cultural Europe

• Orlando Figes, The Europeans: Three Lives and the Making of a Cosmopolitan Culture (2019)
• Donald Sassoon, The Culture of the Europeans: From 1800 to the Present (2006)
• Mark Mazower, Dark Continent: Europe's Twentieth Century (1998)
• Paul Betts, Ruin and Renewal: Civilising Europe after the Second World War (2020)
• George Steiner, In Bluebeard's Castle (1971)
• John Dickie, Delizia! The Epic History of Italians and their Food (2007)
• Jonathan Morris, Coffee: a Global History (2019)
• Dean Vuletic, Postwar Europe and the Eurovision Song Contest (2026)

Chapter 5. Imagined Europe

• Shane Weller, The Idea of Europe: A Critical History (2021)
• Larry Wolff, Inventing Eastern Europe: The Map of Civilisation on the Mind of the Enlightenment (1994)
• François Duchȇne, Jean Monnet: The First Statesman of Interdependence (1994)

Chapter 6. Political Europe

• Tony Judt, Postwar: A History of Europe since 1945 (2005)
• Bernard Wasserstein, Barbarism and Civilisation: A History of Europe in Our Time (2007)
• Kiran Klaus Patel, A Concise History of the European Union (2026)
• Luuk van Middelaar, Alarums and Excursions: Improvising Politics on the European Stage (2019)
• Isaac Stanley-Becker, Europe without Borders: A History (2025)

Chapter 7. Today’s Europe

• Timothy Garton Ash, Homelands: A Personal History of Europe (2023)
• Ben Judah, This Is Europe: The Way We Live Now (2023)
• Ivan Krastev and Stephen Holmes, The Light That Failed (2019)
• Loukas Tsoukalis, Europe's Coming of Age (2023)
• Timothy Garton Ash ed., Young Europeans Speak to EU (2021)

Chapter 7½. Nightcap Europe

• Václav Havel, Open Letters: Selected Writings, 1965-1990 (1992)