European History For Dummies
£15.20
Read about the world’s smallest continent’s incredible history: From Greek gods and mad Roman emperors to kings, queens, Visigoths, and Normans
You meet Visigoths in Africa and Normans in Sicily; an Italian who talked to his books and another who conquered a kingdom and gave it away; Roman emperors who weren’t Roman; and Holy Roman Emperors who weren’t holy (or Roman). This is the story of Europe’s rich history rolled into one thrilling account in plain English. European History For Dummies takes you on a fascinating journey through the disasters, triumphs, people, power, and politics that have shaped the Europe we know today – and you’ll meet some incredible characters along the way! From Roman relics to the Renaissance, World Wars, and Eurovision, this accessible guide packs in the facts alongside fun tidbits and brings the past alive.
You meet the two Catholic kings of Spain (one was a woman) and the Spanish king who never smiled. You discover a German monk who split Europe in two because he was so afraid of going to hell. And what about the great European war that started when two nobles were thrown out of a window onto a dungheap? Well, at least they had a soft landing.
If you don’t remember much of what you learned about European history at school, if you didn’t like those dry school textbooks, if you think European history sounds a bit hard, but you’re interested anyway, this is the book for you. Inside you’ll discover:
- The varied history of the world’s smallest continent, its origins, and its huge impact on the world
- How the Romans shaped the ancient world, what they learned from the Greeks, and what they lost to the barbarian tribes
- The many battles of the Middle Ages and the leaders who waged them
- The medieval people’s great achievements in building and learning
- Europeans’ world explorers, including Columbus and Vasco da Gama
- Unfortunate religious wars and the persecution of witches
- Europe’s world domination in the 18th and 19th centuries
- The world wars of the 20th century
- European life today
Get your own copy of European History For Dummies to learn all of that and more — including the ten Europeans who dominated the continent, ten unforgettable dates, and ten European locales you’ll absolutely want to visit.
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Additional information
| Publisher | 2nd edition (14 Jan. 2011), For Dummies |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| File size | 2092 KB |
| Text-to-Speech | Enabled |
| Screen Reader | Supported |
| Enhanced typesetting | Enabled |
| X-Ray | Not Enabled |
| Word Wise | Enabled |
| Sticky notes | On Kindle Scribe |
| Print length | 640 pages |
by Sean P.
This book is an excellent example of history made more approachable and introductory to people new in this field of study. The book is well structured with its sections focusing on specific eras and chapters concerned with important and significant events. The book is wide-ranging concerning the countries it covers. Russia, Sweden and to an extent the Ottoman Empire are treated will equal importance as the Western Countries, which is at times hard to find in a general study of history.
Using descriptive narrative writing and in many cases irony, the topics at hand are brought closer to the reader making it a pleasant and fascinatingly interesting read. I highly recommend this book to anyone new to the field, for revision or out of interest sake. A brilliant introduction to more than 2000 years of European History.
by SM Tuckwood
I haven,t read much of the book yet but so far I’ve found it easy to understand and cross reference, informative and yet written in a reader friendly way.
by Amazon Customer
I bought this as I wanted to know how European countries had been formed and borders had changed throughout the ages…… i would have thought that the first things to provide in a book like this was a MAP! Dissapointed
by R. Campani
excellent reminder or outline with clear explainations and good bibliography to pursue study
by karen
Lots of facts and easy to dip in and out of or just pick a section to read..helps you learn without getting bogged down in a boring book
by Mrs Ann Brown
easy to understand and easy reading well written and comprehensive a good companion for previous books in this dummies series.
by Josepha Malone
Perfect
by Marie Hanwell
I didn’t like how the guide to the chapters at the beginning didn’t specifically say what they were about. For instance if you were looking for any information on the Greeks then you’d have to look under the chapter labelled “You’re Ancient History!”. I don’t think it’s very clear when everything happened and even though the book seems to keep some sort of timeline of when things happen, I just think if you’re making a book specifically for “Dummies” then I would have thought it would be easier to read than this. I also find it hard to engage in a book with no illustrations so that doesn’t help. Having said that I couldn’t find another book that had so much information about the history of Europe so it is helpful in that aspect and when you do get into a chapter it does all come together eventually to make sense.