It was a struggle to get to the end of this book, but on the whole a worthwhile struggle. The book was well-written with a plenitude of entertaining anecdotes. However, there were a number of down points. It is over a thousand large, densely written pages and a very large proportion of them describe in horrific detail the atrocities of the second world war, and many of the others dreadful things from the rest of the century. I understand why the author did this, the sheer weight of the volume of the descriptions drives the point home, and it is good not to let war criminals like "Bomber Harris" off the hook, but nevertheless at a certain moment it is too much. It is also not balanced. Reading this book I get the idea that European history is nothing but misery and one dreadful war crime after another. I just wish that a few more of those thousand plus pages had been about some of the good things that have happened in Europe.

Very readable travelogue/history of Europe in the 20th century.

A great read if you are interested in European history! I didn't read this one cover to cover- just a few hundred of its pages for a class. I hope to sit down and read it all! It is dense though, but it characterizes the history of Europe so well (WW1-today).

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.

It's hard to describe what exactly this book is. It's a combination of travelogue, personal memoir, history book, politic philosophy - all of those and yet none of those. Geert Mak, a Dutch journalist, spent the year final year of the last millennium travelling through Europe, writing about the people he met, the places he visited and the historical and political background, chronicling the changes of the century just past.

Of all centuries, the twentieth had the most impact on Europe - the century of the world wars, the Cold War and the Iron Curtain, the EEC and the EU, the euro, the religious conflicts, the genocides. These are all chronicled and more, from Berlin to Sarajevo, London to Prague, Istanbul to Moscow. But more than places and events, this is a book about the people of Europe in all their diversity, how they have experienced the twentieth century, how they 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.

It's a wonderfully written book, very personable and engaging - a testament to both the author and the English translator. I'd definitely recommend it to anyone who wants to understand Europe a little better, and so much of what Geert Mak wrote, fifteen years ago now, still holds true today.

Op een fijne en haast ‘gezellige’ manier neemt Geert Mak je mee door het begin vd twintigste eeuw. Met veel details en anekdotes uit brieven, dagboeken, interviews en zijn rondreis geeft hij een (volgens mij) erg volledig beeld van hoe het was. Ik heb hieruit veel meer geleerd dan alle geschiedenislessen bij elkaar. Ik kijk uit naar deel 2.

The personal anecdotes were beautiful. If individual lives are not what history truly is about, then I don't know what history is.

Probably the best book I've ever read. Though also probably the most depressing time I could have possibly finished it.

'Europe's weakness, its diversity, is also its greatest strength. Europe as a peace process was a resounding success. Europe as an economic union is also well on its way. But the European project will surely fail unless a common cultural, political, and, above all, democratic space is soon created alongside the rest. For let us not forget: Europe has only one chance to succeed.'

'During the election campaigns, no one talks about normal issues any more, only about vague things like the 'universal question' and 'nation'. That keeps you from being accountable for anything. That way it's always the other guy.' - Bosnian journalist, talking about the pre-war general election.