Europe may be made up of many cultures but its component parts share an artistic and literary sensibility, says Everyman's Library publisher David Campbell. Here, he recommends five European classics that everyone should read at least once in their life, including "the greatest novel ever written" and some lesser-known masterpieces.

With hindsight, was the euro a good idea? Will it come through the present crisis intact or will any country decide to leave? And what happens if they do? Economist Barry Eichengreen recommends the best books on the euro.

Andreas Wesemann says WWI reparations did not fuel the rise of Nazism - Germany hardly paid any. He tells the true story of the rise of fascism

The tumultuous history of Ukraine and its continuing upheavals are not well understood beyond its borders. Yale historian Marci Shore recommends the best books on the land of many identities and languages that is modern Ukraine.

As a teenager, Velma Šarić's hometown of Kladanj welcomed refugees from eastern Bosnia as it was bombed and shelled, her primary school eventually becoming a shelter for people fleeing the massacre at Srebenica. Now she runs Sarajevo's Post-Conflict Research Centre, trying to prevent anything like it from ever happening again. She recommends books to read on the Bosnian War and explains that it was not a war between different communities, but rather an assault on the country's multiethnic, multicultural identity.

We call him Charlemagne, but it was not a name that was used in his own lifetime. His conquests stretched across vast swathes of Europe, but he probably didn't set out to become an emperor. Much has been written about him, but very little is known. Dutch historian Carine van Rhijn, a lecturer at the University of Utrecht, recommends the best books on Charles, King of the Franks.

The popular military historian Antony Beevor recommends some of his own favourite books about the Second World War.

Which are the best books on the Enlightenment? Jonathan Israel, one of the leading historians of early modern Europe, recommends his top five.

In the years immediately after World War II, the Holocaust was little studied. That all changed with the publication of Raul Hilberg's book, The Destruction of the European Jews. Steven Katz, professor of Jewish Holocaust Studies at Boston University and former Director of the Elie Wiesel Center for Jewish Studies, introduces the best Holocaust books.    

In the 20th century, Germany suffered defeat in two world wars and withstood two kinds of dictatorship. Yet today it is Europe's strongest economy. Hester Vaizey, fellow of Clare College, Cambridge, and author of Born in the GDR, selects five brilliant books on a tumultuous century.

Much as some Brexiteers like to pretend it isn't, England is not only in Europe, but has been, in various centuries and in various ways, at the very heart of it. The former Deputy Prime Minister of the UK, Nick Clegg, discusses his favourite European novels and the founding text of his own political ideology, liberalism.

The past may be a foreign country, but the world portrayed in the art of the Dutch Masters is not so very far from our own, says Adam Eaker of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. For a society that struggles with materialism and consumption, there are a lot of lessons to be learnt from the 17th century Golden Age.

After a tumultuous year in politics, 'populism' is on everybody's lips. But what is it? Is it good or bad for democracy? How is it that populist movements often have superrich leaders? Political scientist and longtime populism observer Cas Mudde recommends the best books on populism.

Having trouble getting your head around the refugee crisis? New York Times reporter Patrick Kingsley, formerly the Guardian's migration correspondent, chooses the best books on refugees. He explains his choices to Ziad Ghandour, himself a refugee from Syria.

More than 100 years after the Armenian genocide, author Tom de Waal chooses books that sidestep the politics and bring us back to the human story. He picks the best memoirs of the Armenian genocide.

The writer and historian Ian Buruma selects five Western perspectives of the East, including a novel of colonial India, a travelogue of disappearing Japan, and the collection of essays that lifted the veil on Mao's China.

The explorer and author of Into the Silence, Wade Davis, tells us that the consequences of the Great War were much more than merely political. He says the war had a noticeable impact on exploration, arts and literature, and modernity itself.

Britain is a bewilderingly motley nation of phlegmatic grumblers, says the author and editor Matthew Engel – a seaside resort-going, class-conscious people haunted by loss of empire, and we can’t even agree on what the country is called

The Islamic scholar and commentator tells us what it means to be Muslim and Western, and explains how mainstream views get trapped between noisy extremism and a sensation-seeking media

Postwar Europe was a scene of both physical and moral destruction. Keith Lowe, author of the award-winning Savage Continent, recommends essential reading for understanding the sheer scale of suffering, dislocation and fighting after the war was over.

Historian and novelist James Holland talks us through some of his favourite memoirs and novels about the Second World War and explains his lifelong fascination with the global conflict.

The author of The Maid and the Queen takes us on an enjoyable ride through European history, looking at well-connected women who outwitted their husbands or asserted their independence.

The traumas of the 20th century hit Eastern Europe hard – a region of changing borders, uncertain identity, and shattering of moral norms. The journalist and communism expert selects books that capture the spirit of the age.

The history professor tells us what today’s dissidents can learn from the experience of Eastern Europe and explains how Václav Havel leaves a lasting legacy of how to challenge the over-mighty

The Dutch science journalist takes a light-hearted look at national stereotypes: why Dutch women are happy, and what it means to be blonde. She picks the best books on Dutch women.

Veteran diplomat Michael Palliser discusses his friend Henry Kissinger’s diplomatic skills and says his experiences in post-war Germany made him a committed European

Booker Prize-winning translator David Bellos says Les Misérables is the greatest novel of all time. When it came out, "it was an event bigger than the launch of Titanic and Avatar put together." He picks the five greatest French novels.

The historian and author chooses five books on de Gaulle and the Resistance. He says the British tried to veto de Gaulle’s famous 1940 speech from London calling on the French to stand up to German occupation

Princeton professor of Hellenic studies says the 17th-century Mediterranean is fascinating because it was a time when nobody was in charge. And yet, it was possible to have "order without law"

Author and founder of Virago Press decries the absolute silence of the church during the Holocaust, and discusses five books on the "dark and murky side" the French have now "faced up to"

From the book Robinson Crusoe was based on to surrealist filmmakers, Jason Webster chooses five books that illustrate the power of the Spanish imagination.

The Dutch army captain whose unit secured Tuzla airbase for the incoming UN aid in 1994 talks about the books he kept with him in Bosnia, and the inspiration for his Yugoslav novel, King of Tuzla

The English countryside on a sunny summer's day is one of the most beguiling places in the world to be. But how has it changed since the Black Death? Is there still a meaningful difference between urban and rural society? Rural historian Paul Brassley talks us through the best books to get a fuller understanding of England's green and pleasant land.

Steve Darlow, author of nine books on military aviation, discusses his favourite books on pilots during the Second World War - a time when 800 Allied airmen were lynched