Some time ago, and in connection with a different book, I wrote a review that essentially began: “Every now and then, just every once in a while, one comes across a book so impressive, so erudite, and so communicative that it leaves the reader in awe. for his achievement and fully rewarded for the experience of reading it. I did not expect to find another book in the near future to which that description would also apply. I have done just that, and my life is immeasurably richer as a result.
The title, Europe since Napoleon, communicates what the book is about. This is not a story of the United States, Asia, China, South America or Africa. Europe is the focus, but the vision is by no means myopic. During the period in question, history, of course, documents that some European powers were imperial powers, claiming ownership and rule of colonies all over the world, indeed on every continent. There was also the detail of two World Wars, which have been given that title because the conflict was almost global in scale. Hence Europe Since Napoleon deals with many aspects of history, politics, and economics that relate to the global interests of European nations, and as such, this book, at least in the opinion of this reader, becomes more of a a Eurocentric view of world history. rather than a narrower discussion of a specific continent. And it should also be added that any Eurocentrism arises almost out of focus, and not out of any form of bias or sense of superiority.
However, there is a problem with the title of the book. Europe Since Napoleon implies that it could begin at the end of the French imperial era, but Europe Since Napoleon begins by looking at the circumstances and events that allowed Napoleon to come to power. We begin, therefore, with the discussion of pre-revolutionary France and the revolution itself, because it was from these events that the opportunity arose for Napoleon to assume power.
The Napoleonic wars, the peace, the reform, the revolution, socialism, work, the economy, Russian expansion, nationalism, the creation of Italy and Germany, the Franco-Prussian war and the Paris Commune pass, and we are still Half of the book’s two centuries of coverage remain to be completed. Of course, there follows the Berlin Conference, the partition of Africa, the taking over of the rest of the world into European vantage points, the Great War, another revolution, boom, depression, strike, major war, atomic bombs, the Blackout Curtain. Steel, the suggestion of international cooperation, the rise of science, the nuclear age and the molecular age.
Of course, Europe since Napoleon, like any work of synthesis, cannot even address the pretense of being comprehensive. But in his book, David Thomson regularly illustrates how the big issues of the day redraw the map, forge new alliances, create opportunity, and transform people’s lives. The author wrote more than 400,000 words in almost 1000 pages and at the end offers a complete bibliography of works that he has undoubtedly read to provide greater depth on most of the topics covered in the book.
But the real strength of Europe since Napoleon is not its coverage, nor its description of the events it lists, but its narrative. Throughout David Thompson resists the temptation to simply list facts, opting instead for a fluid narrative style that, it must be said, assumes a modicum of prior knowledge. But what the reader does gain from this seemingly stylistic plot is a rather brilliant contextualization, synthesis, and thus understanding. This is a thousand page history book that is simply a joy to read, from page one to page 946, to be precise, not counting the appendices.
And, if the above weren’t praise enough, the author’s closing remarks, written in the 1960s, are ostensibly predictions of where the human race may go in the coming decades and are nothing short of revealing. David Thompson not only takes a broader view of history, but also demonstrates a true intellectual vision that is impressive in its scope and exciting in its optimism. Reading this vision sixty years later, one can only ask the question, how on earth did this happen, how on earth did we end up here? And, after reading this book, the one thing that history has repeatedly taught us is that we can catalog, describe, and understand, but also that we must not predict, and we must not take anything for granted. History is a guide, but it never repeats itself, never brings us back to the familiar. That was how it happened. What a magnificent book!
