As an American in my mid-forties I realized I never was taught much about the history of any other part of the world, except where it intersected with American history or values. After visiting Europe a few times I realized I knew nothing about the various people and their cultures so I looked for a book to help remedy that.
I love this book! It is incredibly dense, but fascinating. I've found that to get the most out of it, and save myself from frequent confusion, I am often doing web searches for names, languages and maps to help me put the writing in perspective and remind me of the geography relative to modern times.
The print is small and the book is well over 1000 pages, but with some patience I've read the entire thing in about 6 months. A smarter person might be able to read it faster, but I was intent on absorbing as much as possible. I see myself keeping this book handy and using it as a reference as I continue to read other books and plan more visits to Europe.
I highly recommend this book to anyone seeking a broad understanding of the European continent, and where it's people came from.
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