The Shortest History of Europe: How Conquest, Culture, and Religion Forged a Continent―A Retelling for Our Times (The Shortest History Series)

If you are looking to tackle this weighty subject matter, John Hirst can help you through it with concise, clear explanations and a great deal of dry wit. This book helps answer many of the questions I've struggled with for years in history classes like "What was the Papal split of the 14th century all about? And how was there a Holy Roman Emperor 1000 years after the fall of the Roman Empire? And other than pissing off most of Athens, what real impact did Socrates and his students have on Western philosophy?" This book gives you a quick rundown of the history of Western culture and thought in a way that is meaningful, practical, and entertaining. My only real criticism of the book is the author tends to gloss over the bloodier side of European history, almost to the point of sugarcoating it. However, I feel that this is more a sin of omission than bias. Focusing on an single historical event for any length of time might detract from the overall theme of the book, which is an attempt to broadly define European culture and its origins. However, I would have appreciated the author's insights into some of the wars, conflicts, and conquests that shaped Europe afterward, to better understand the motives behind them. In general, though, this is an excellent resource. It is very helpful when studying any period of European history, to gain a better understanding of what the driving cultural and philosophical forces were behind the scenes.

The book looks at the history from a different angle, looking at the influences of Greece, Rome, Christianity, and external forces. Makes you think in a different way. For me the book could be more organized, the author seems to jump a lot from one place to another, from one time period to another. So if you look for a quick look-it-up what happened, when and where, not the right book. But the political, ethnic, religious, industrial influences explained makes it an interesting read and insight.

Just finished this most fun read. This Aussie historian leads us a very clever journey through European history from Pericles' Athens to WWII. Overlaying the intersections/connectivity of religion, politics, language, personalities, and cultures. Easy to read, dense in information/perspective...with a healthy dose of Aussie humor thrown in. Get on it history buffs! $7 on Kindle to boot.

As a non-native English speaker, It took me 2 weeks to finish this small book. But this also tells that this this an interesting book that I would like to keep reading. This is not a regular “fact" text history book. The author summarized the whole European history in a few threads, makes the entire book very easy to grasp. Highly recommend this to anyone as an European history starter read.

Does a great job of presenting political and cultural trends rather than getting bogged down in detail. Easy to read, entertaining, and a great overview of European history

Though not perfect, this book offers a great, concise overview of European history. I knew much of the post-Renaissance history quite extensively, but my knowledge of pre-Renaissance was a little fuzzy. This filled in numerous gaps in my personal knowledge (and set me thirsting for more) and has definitely helped me make more sense of European (and World) History (in the grand scheme). The language chapter was particularly fascinating to me. I wish there had been more post-WWII modern history mentioned, but alas, there was not. But overall, a great overview!

An interesting book that serves as a quick guide to the history of Europe through its three main eras: classical, medieval and modern. The book offers the reader an integral, complete and concise history of how the Greek and Roman cultures are the basis of all of Europe. Spinning ideas, periods and events, the author offers a nice way to build a mental story that is easy to assimilate for the reader. The writing begins to dwindle once the chronography of the eighteenth century is given up: the lack of clarity and speed with which ideas and facts are exposed make the reading lost and vanished by the imminent lack of detail of historical research. Also, I believe that the author assumes in the work that the public is informed of the modern European era and only offers a basic account of the nineteenth and twentieth century. In short, an efficient and effective book to understand the first eras of European history. To acquire knowledge of the modern era I would suggest consulting another book, since this is only a superficial account of facts.

Really enjoyed this book. The information is well written and kept my interest. I recently started to visit Europe and this material gave me the Cliff Notes version to make the tours more understandable. Even if you aren't traveling it is an interesting read if you are the least bit interested in history or origin of items like our language or why wars were fought.

Ripassando fatti e concetti che sono abituato a vedere isolati mi appaiono evidenti le trame eterne della Storia. Questo libro naviga ad altezza satellitare sopra qualche secolo di storia. Ottima e breve lettura.

Excellent little tome, well written and concise. Tables throughout the book act as reminders of previous themes and their development. A great place for jumping in to subjects in more depth.

This book is fantastic. It gives you a pretty clear picture of Europe pilars and development over centuries. One of the best things is how it is structured giving you good views from different perspectives such as religion, economy, politics, military, etc. I recommend this book both for fans of history but also to those interested to better understand our present.

I am about a third through the book but I am sold on it. It is not a complete or detailed history of europe, but rather tries to identify and present the most important pieces of information to give the reader a complete picture of why the european culture is what it is. On very few pages, Hirst manages to break the matter down in a verry understandable and manner. This is a read for people who want to get into an incredibly deep and compelling subject, but need a quick intro to get startet. Or for people who already know a lot of the details, but do not feel like they understand the big picture of the last 2000 years of european history.

『超訳〜』という日本語訳を借りて読んでみた。原著が読む価値がある本だとわかったのだが、日本語訳は困ったレベルなので、原著を読もうと思った。なかなか画期的な本だと思う。是非とも子供にも読ませたいが、中学生には英文はきついか…。 で、日本語訳がどう困ったかというと「文章の論理が途中で反転している箇所」があちこちにあった。まぁ、誤訳だろう。あと「ローマ人は初めて王によって支配された人々だった」とあるが多分、「ローマ人は、当初は王によって支配された人々であった」の間違いだろう。それとも王政の歴史はローマから始めったのだろうか？（まだ、原書にはあたっていない）その他にも色々あやしい部分があった。せっかくの名著なのだから日本語版の担当者にはもっと頑張ってもらいたい。 【追記】 さて、本が届きました。とても平易な英語で書かれていて日本語訳よりかえって読みやすいです。 ただ、私が購入した中古本には鉛筆とボールペンの書き込みがありました。 業者さんには「外国のことはわからないけど、日本の顧客から見れば『良い』とは言えないコンデションなので、書き込みがあることを明記したほうが良い」と伝えておきました。 過去に親切な対応をしてくれた業者さんでしたので悪気はないものと解釈したからです。