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Average Customer Rating:

Outstanding

Customer Rating:

This really is an outstanding book. If you're interested in 20th century European, this is a must read. Mak covers the big events but also less well known ones from the last century interweaving interviews with people from politicians in the EU to descendants of German Kaisers to personal accounts from "ordinary" people illustrating the far-reaching effects of the events of the last 100 years. This is unputdownable.

An enlightening perspective for semi-detached English readers

Customer Rating:

I bought In Europe because I had read a review that praised it greatly, and I enjoyed reading it more than I could have hoped. For me, Geert Mak offered a view of Europe through the twentieth century from the perspective of someone from a small, mainland European country. He doesn't write European history from the viewpoint of one of the major players, so it is never about Britain's (or France's, or Germany's) role in the First of Second World Wars. He goes about Europe and through the twentieth century, calling on his many friends and contacts in key places for key events, meeting people here and there by chance. And he gives the reader a patchwork of novel insights and deeply personal understandings. My copy has now been read by at least two other people, and is well thumbed by me; and I have recommended it to many others, and bought copies for friends as presents.

A wonderful book - recommended to everyone...

Customer Rating:

This is a combination of travelogue and history book - a Dutch journalist spending a year travelling through Europe, writing about the people he meets, the places he visits and the historical background. It's wonderfully written, very personable and engaging, and very interesting. It's about how the people of Europe see themselves in relation to the world around them, about how they react to other Europeans, about whether they even consider themselves European at all. I really enjoyed this book and I'd recommend it to anyone.

Poetry in history

Customer Rating:

Geert Mak's book is a masterpiece. It's not a complete and exhaustive account of the 20th Century in Europe, instead it reads in the form of a travelogue as Mak visits some of the significant places upon which events took place, for example Sarajevo and Berlin. It's not a dry and dusty recounting of facts, instead it's a warm and readable insight into some of the people and events which were so pivotal for the history of Europe. Somehow he is able to find vignettes of events which illustrate the whole, interviewing people who, although unnoticed players in history, have their own insight into the events and their own experiences of how things affected them. What's outstanding about this book is the quality of the writing (and the translation too). Mak is able to distil complex events into fascinating pieces of writing and he regularly personalises situations that otherwise could seem too vague. I was particularly moved by the chapters on the First World War where he quoted various young men who were part of the fighting on both sides and showed that, for the individuals involved in the war, events were seen very differently from those in overall charge. In this book Mak often quotes short phrases in German which aren't translated and could cause some trouble for those who don't speak German; however most other languages have some kind of translation where they occur. This is a very big book and it's not something that you want to read through continuously. However I found myself dipping into it on a regular basis, 3-4 chapters at a time, and I always enjoyed it. There's a lot of history in Mak's book of which I was previously unaware, such as Lenin's return by train to Russia, and I was continually amazed that one man could have put the work together and could weave the threads of events into coherent wholes. There are few illustrations in this book (mainly maps showing his travels in each section of the book) but his wordsmith craft paints vivid enough pictures to make this book well worth the reading and a genuine triumph. Originally published for Curled Up With A Good Book © Helen Hancox 2008

Learned Travel	Customer Rating:
This is a very well written and structured canter through European C20th history. I found it almost unputdownable. It taught me masses that I didn't know, and connected events long ago with today. Highly enjoyable, and very much recommended!