I've had this on the back of the toilet for a few months--great bathroom reading, I dare say. Sections are broken into small, two to seven page chunks, making this a great bit of porcelain prose.But, on a lighter note, Roberts does the unthinkable: he condenses three thousand years of European history into a single, accurate, informative tome with a wonderfully readable prose. As a primer for European history, this book is at the top of the class and, moreover, for those who are more intimately familiar with history, it is in no way a tedious read. Neither too surfactory nor too pedantic, Roberts provides a compelling and accessible book on an important part of world history.And it really is good toilet-reading material. Though, that should not cast aspersions on its merits. ( )

It must have been a hard task, sitting down to write the history of Europe and keeping it under 700 pages (not including the index). Mr Roberts does a magnificent job; he has produced here an enormously satisfying work that introduces at least all of the principal and most relevant events of the last three or so thousand years, and explains them in a way that makes their importance really stand out.

However, no history ever can be said to be complete, or completely accurate; for instance, in describing the Oil Crisis of the 1970s he states that Russia was almost entirely unaffected by events in the Gulf, whereas from recently revealed Soviet documents one can almost say that the Oil Crisis was the first step in the downfall of the Soviet Empire. That, though, is no reason to abandon this book. ( )

Europe > History

J. M. Roberts, author of a fine one-volume history of the world, offers a careful synthesis of European history from the Stone Age to the collapse of Communism in A History of Europe. His discussion is never very deep, as might be expected in a book that treats the whole of ancient Greek history in a mere 20 pages, but it is astonishingly broad. Roberts hits on almost all of the important points, especially the formation of trade networks, empires, and central governments. Literate and learned, A History of Europe is marred by a lack of notes and bibliography, but it is still serviceable as a survey text.

The New York Times Book Review, Donald Kagan

The appearance of A History of Europe by J. M. Roberts is ... timely and welcome. Roberts is a distinguished historian ... He thus brings to this project the broad knowledge needed to see the history of Europe in comparison with the experience of other cultures, a context in which it can best be understood and evaluated.