Europe: A New History

A new history of the idea of Europe from Ancient Greece to the present

'A magisterial history, written with great panache, that is both enlightening and deeply readable. A true tour de force - Peter Frankopan

What do we talk about when we talk about Europe? Is it defined by geography? Or is it politics, or shared culture? In Europe, award-winning historian Roderick Beaton tells the story of Europe as never before - as the history of an idea, and a collective identity.

Since its dramatic birth in ancient Greece, 'Europe' has been defined, and redefined, by its people. Through this powerful lens, and with the narrative drive and scope of a novelist, Beaton deftly surveys Europe’s major historical developments: the rise and fall of Rome; the explosion of Christianity; the intellectual ferment of the Renaissance and the Enlightenment; the arrival of Europeans in the Americas; the violent upheavals of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries; and the uncertainties of the present. Throughout, original sources allow the voices of the past, from Tacitus to Thatcher, to speak for themselves.

Grappling with the multilayered identities that have always come with being European, Europe places the Europe of today in a long arc of history stretching back more than 2,500 years.

Review

A magisterial history, written with great panache, that is both enlightening and deeply readable. A true tour de force -- Peter Frankopan

Europe is big history at its best. In this captivating romp across twenty-five centuries, from the Battle of Marathon to Putin’s war on Ukraine, Roderick Beaton offers inspiring and surprising answers to one of the great questions of our age: What is Europe? -- Ian Morris, author of Why the West Rules―For Now

Praise for Roderick Beaton's previous book Greece: Biography of a Modern Nation ― -

The best history of Greece around... Beautifully written and packed with insights about the culture and the people. I will be dipping into this book for the rest of my life -- Victoria Hislop ― The Week

Beaton's new book - judicious, well-researched and commendably up-to-date - deserves to be the standard general history of modern Greece in English for years to come ― Financial Times

A perceptive analysis of Greece's financial crisis, the embers of which continue to threaten to derail the single currency project of the EU ― Country Life

This book explores the history, not of a Greece of romantic or philhellenic imagination, but the reality of the country as it has become today. The empathy it evokes for the survival of modern Greek statehood against a recurring pattern of often existential crisis is all the more compelling, subtle and above all human in its many-sidedness. Beaton's account instantly becomes the single most outstanding treatment of its subject -- Professor Robert Holland

A wonderfully engaging narrative... It is a superb achievement and to be recommended to anyone with even the most rudimentary interest -- Professor Kevin Featherstone

About the Author

Roderick Beaton is Emeritus Koraes Professor of Modern Greek and Byzantine History, Language and Literature at King's College London and Chair of Trustees of the British School at Athens, an institute of advanced research. He is a four-time winner of the Runciman Award, for his books An Introduction to Modern Greek Literature, George Seferis: Waiting for the Angel: A Biography, Byron's War: Romantic Rebellion, Greek Revolution, and Greece: Biography of a Modern Nation, published by Penguin in 2019. He is also the author of The Greeks: A Global History. He is a Fellow of the British Academy, Commander of the Order of Honour of the Hellenic Republic, and an honorary citizen of Greece. He was knighted in 2025.