Europe Books

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.

Slovenia has the organised, modern infrastructure of Western Europe, the laid-back lifestyle of Southern Europe, and a generous seasoning of Balkan spice—as well as a Mediterranean coastline with hot summers, Alpine mountains with snowy winters, Tuscany-like terraced vineyards, and caves like Lord of the Rings, says British writer Sam Baldwin. He recommends books to get to know the country he fell in love with and now lives in.

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.