A great concise history of religion and it's roots and how it impacted the various people who inhabited Europe over the decades. A must read for someone who just needs a quick history without all the details.

I enjoyed this book far more than I expected. I originally picked it up via NetGalley, but something went wrong with the download and I was unable to read it at the time. Eventually, I got a copy from the library - only to find that the book itself was not a new release at all, but actually written in 2009.

Nonetheless, the book was fantastic, and lived up to its name - it was indeed a very short history of Europe. In areas of history that I was more familiar with, I respected the way the author found a way to summarise it; in areas of history that I was less familiar with, I was very happy to discover that I didn't get lost. Overall, the author drew basically the entire history of Europe from the Romans to the French Revolution together in a way which hit the nail on the head for the correct level of simplicity, and I really appreciated it. Indeed, it helped me think through some concepts (like revolution, and liberalism) that I was trying to approach from a fantasy perspective in a story I've been writing.

My main criticism of this book, which is more acute given that it was written in 2009 and it is now 2023, is that it is very euro-centric. Yes, it's a book entirely about European history, but it does act as if the history of Europe was necessarily and inevitably all interlinked, and therefore the melting pot of civilisation. At the end, the author acknowledges the advances made by other civilisations, but continues to focus on the European exceptionalism approach that he had taken thus far. And yes, maybe it's true, but it rubbed me the wrong way to read in this day and age. Specifically, since the author is Australian, the "march of civilisation", euro-centric approach did not sit well with me.

Overall however, it does what it says on the tin - and it does it very well.

Book review: The Shortest History of Europe
Unless you're just collecting names and dates, your genealogy research becomes richer the more you know about history, religion, and culture. Putting your ancestors in context not only helps you understand their lives within their own times, but gives you better direction on what to look for in sources and what to research next.

If you need a refresher, check out The Shortest History series published by The Experiment LLC. Current books in the series include Europe, England, Germany, Israel and Palestine, India, China, and Greece, with more in the works. Promoted as “Thousands of years of history. One riveting, fast-paced read,” the series is written by expert historians who are also international bestselling authors.

The title says it all: The Shortest History of Europe: How Conquest, Culture, and Religion Forged a Continent—A Retelling of Our Times. This is not a sprawling narrative filled with name-dropping and stringent timelines. Instead, John Hirst’s narrative explores how Greek and Roman learning, Christianity, and German warrior culture created modern Europe.

At first, it’s hard to absorb how only three elements determined the course of European history. But Hirst shows how all the monumental events happened because of conquest, culture, and religion.

For example, the Catholic Church banished or executed great thinkers like Copernicus and Galileo because their interpretations of how the universe worked contradicted the Greco-Roman view. Martin Luther and his followers wanted to return Christianity to its basic form—the Bible—without the Greco-Roman trappings and started the Reformation. Many years later, Isaac Newton and Einstein explained their scientific discoveries by following the Greek theory that answers would be “simple, mathematical, and logical.”

Throughout the book and its many revolutions, Hirst synthesizes European history in a way that went beyond my college classes, yet is simple and accessible.

I loved the author's organization and flow of information. It was a great way of connecting the varied eras. The flow charts were a great way of illustrating all the multiple strings of information. Granted some facts had to be left out or ot emphasized as well as I would have liked, it us a great guide to the history of the west.

This was a fantastic read. I loved every minute of it and learnt so much from reading it. It was well wrote and flowed really well. I loved how it not only tells us about history but explains how and why it occurred. I liked how this book didn't go overly indepth into the subjects. This made the book an excellent light read. This book would be brilliant for those who want to read an introduction into European history. Then from there you can find more indepth books on the areas that interest you the most. I definitely struggled to put this book down and had to finish it in one afternoon. I really loved the maps and diagrams it really helped give us a visual perspective and helps break up the text giving us that extra dimension. It was obvious from reading this book that the author had great knowledge and that the books was well researched. I definitely recommend reading this book if you love light learning or need an introduction that is both factful, interesting and easy to understand. I will definitely be looking out for more books by this fantastic author. 

Many thanks to the author and publishers for putting together this brilliant book that was very easy to learn from and so very interesting. 

The above review has already been placed on goodreads, waterstones, Google books, Barnes&noble, kobo, amazon UK where found and my blog today https://ladyreading365.wixsite.com/website/post/the-shortest-history-of-europe-by-john-hirst-the-experiment-4-stars either under my name or ladyreading365

Like all “the Shortest History of” books, this is a great way to get a sense of the subject matter before exploring other sources. Very accessible, easy to read and fun, this book is a welcome addition to the series.

(4/5) I thought this book was engaging and informative, but I will say -- the nature of a book entitled "Shortest History of" anything is that it will inevitably gloss over things, leave things out, and summarize it in a way that would probably cause a fistfight at any gathering of historians of that subject, who are wont to disagree about the minutiae and relative importance of historical events, causes, effects, etc. I think Hirst balanced the length with covering the important details, and I appreciated the way that he categorized things and made things easy to understand from multiple perspectives. Definitely would consider this book a good overview to encourage a reader to delve into specific areas in which they find they're interested.

Engaging and informative! I learned a lot and plan to read it with my kids and feature it on my homeschool site. I’ll update with the link when I do so.

If you've never taken a European history class, this is pretty much what it's like. My thoughts:
• This is a version of a 2009 book
• I'm reading this bc I heard him on an old podcast, but he's dead
• It should be called western civ instead of Europe
• The nature of this book is that everything is an oversimplification
• This seems to be a traditionalist approach - Renaissance and Middle Ages being categorical ages
• The fall of the Roman empire chapter is good
• You can see his biases - specifically calls Arianism heretical

I loved reading this book. I liked the non-flowery writing style with its clarity and conversational tone. Considering the time span and magnitude of the subject matter, there is an astonishing depth of information in what is actually a relatively concise book. The maps and visuals helped with this. John Hirst opted to explain why things happened as opposed to just offering a collection of dates, places, and names. Obviously Hirst couldn’t go into a lot of details, but I feel like he covered all the major ones. I was also pleased that the parts on World Wars 1 and 2 were equally treated concisely. The book is fast-paced and impossible to put down, yet it doesn’t feel rushed. The one downside of the book is that it really only covered western Europe. Despite this, this is a great book for anyone interested in the history of Europe. Thank you to Netgalley and The Experiment for the advance reader copy.

I enjoyed reading this book, but I think I would have enjoyed all the information more if I heard it as a lecture. There was a lot of information and some facts I didn’t know, so it was a good book. Quick and easy read

This is a funny humorous short history of England from the Jameses to their descendents to their religious practice and more it’s all in this book I found an easy to understand and it also made me laugh and parts. If you log history then you’ll like this book it really is a fun short read. I received this book from NetGalleyShelf and I am leaving this review voluntarily please forgive any mistakes as I am blind and dictate my review.