A Short History of Europe from Pericles to Putin By Simon Jenkins
Jenkins is a well-respected, establishment journalist, with experience and knowledge that he has displayed in his work for newspapers such as The Guardian and The Times and as an authority in media interviews. If this book is anything to go by, he is also a thoughtful and traditional historian. In just 400 pages he tells the story of 4000 years of European history chronologically, focusing on the political and military events precipitated by the continent’s mainly male leaders.
We begin, therefore with the Greeks and then Rome’s long period of ascendancy all the way through to the new realignments that are taking place since the collapse of the Soviet Union. A large chunk of the book about the long, lingering end of the Roman Empire and the struggles of the Byzantine Empire to maintain its power and culture from attacks from the east, is familiar to me from Dan Jones’ recent magisterial account of the Middle Ages. Also familiar is the constant splintering of the tribes and states within Western Europe that eventually coalesced into powerful nation states, with empires here and overseas.
The initial pan-Europeanism of Charlemagne is a positive, romantic story laying the ground for the early Renaissance dominance of Spain, France and Britain, buoyed by increasing maritime trade and New World riches. These are, of course, familiar tales from BBC4 documentaries and the school curriculum as are the Enlightenment, French Revolution, Prussian’s iron diplomacy in the 19th century and then the failure of the centre to hold in 1914-18 as the old empires were swept away. However, Jenkins’ concision and clarity enable the reader to see the patterns from the past that have created modern Europe.
The fluid border between Germany and France has always been the fault line that has precipitated conflict. In fact, you can go back even further than Charles V, in the 16th century, who spent most of his long reign in the saddle tending to his vast Holy Roman Empire, to understand how the EU is just the latest attempt to bring some form of unity to this energetic and disputatious collection of proud tribes, states and identities; and, of course, dear old Blighty has always adopted a rather awkward relationship with the rest of the continent. Sometimes we have been magisterially aloof, oftentimes simmering when we were unnoticed and irrelevant; and today’s incarnation is a mixture of both these attitudes.
The common threads and cycles of the last two millennia emerged strongly in this brisk, straightforward text. It emphasised to me the importance of the past and I guess that is as good a recommendation as any for a history book.