European history textbooks?

February 24, 2009 9:12 AM

I'm looking for a good book or two surveying the major topics in European history up through the unification of Germany and Italy in the late 1800s. Ideally, the book would have a level of detail similar to what would be covered in an AP European History class or a lower-division undergraduate European history course. Bonus points if the book has a good bibliography for further reading on specific events/time periods.
posted by philosophygeek to Writing & Language (9 answers total)

The best that I've read: Europe: A History. Detailed, descriptive, highly readable, and it includes extensive notes on sources.
posted by Paragon at 9:20 AM on February 24, 2009

Norman Rich's The Age of Nationalism and Reform. Was the text used in the undergrad Western Civ class I TA'd back in the '90s.
posted by Ironmouth at 9:30 AM on February 24, 2009

Was coming to suggest what Paragon already has.
posted by Abiezer at 9:32 AM on February 24, 2009

In my AP Euro class, we used the Spielvogel "Western Civilization" series. (There are several editions and iterations in that link; not sure exactly which combination we used.)

In my lower-level Occidental Civilization classes, we used Early Modern Europe, 1450-1789 by Merry Wiesner-Hanks and John Merriman's A History of Modern Europe. The Wiesner-Hanks book also includes a link to a page on the Cambridge Press website, which has a lot of (freely available) primary sources, outlines, and so forth.

Here's a link to some interesting interactive maps from the Spielvogel book (and some other web supplements).

Overall, I think that the Spielvogel series was the most engaging and best written of the lot, though it is clearly intended for a high school audience. If this is for general interest and personal enlightenment, it would certainly be readable and interesting.
posted by charmcityblues at 9:35 AM on February 24, 2009

The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers may be worth a look also.
posted by plep at 9:39 AM on February 24, 2009

Seconding Paragon. Davies' book is superb.
posted by Bromius at 10:10 AM on February 24, 2009

I like Norman Davies' work a great deal, but it's somewhat heterodox in its approach (as is his take on British history in The Isles) which means that it's probably not the first book you want to read on the topic.

For non-reading material, the Berkeley History 5 podcasts -- google for them, as there are several different semesters' worth archived now, with a few different lecturers -- are really great listening, even for people familiar with the period. They're an accompaniment to the European Civ. survey course: the textbook they augment is Coffin & Stacey, which is, unfortunately, textbook-priced.
posted by holgate at 1:20 PM on February 24, 2009

Nthing Europe: A History.

Holgalte, what is it about the book that you think is excessively heterodox for someone unfamiliar with the topic? I'm genuinely curious – except for the (quite reasonable, in my opinion) extra attention paid to Eastern Europe, I can't think of anything too outrageous in the book.
posted by SamuelBowman at 1:45 PM on February 24, 2009

I liked Robert's History of the World & think Penguin's got a Euro-only equivalent, too. (Ex-history grad student speaking here...)
posted by bitter-girl.com at 2:44 PM on February 24, 2009