It is understandable that this book is brief about everything. However, with that simple introduction of people and events, they didn't give me any impression unless I had already known them. There is no maps with this book, not a single one. The author suppose us to know Europe very well before we read this book.

I read this whole book through; every word. I liked it. It gave an interesting, readable overview of European History. European History covers a long period of time so topics get limited time. That's OK. If I saw a topic which was interesting I can research deeper with other books. Much of European history is bloodshed, bloodshed and more bloodshed.

The topic which raised my eyebrow was the author's treatment of the Inquisition. I'll exagerate for fun: He made it seem as if people were tortured with wet noodles and feathers and the stories about horrific torture have been greatly exaggerated. He says, The stories of horrific acts of torture are popular misconceptions trumped up by a few 16th century Spanish Protestant writers with a grudge, writing under the pseudonym, "Montanus". Lang says, although torture was used; better results were had by questioning. Maybe it's because the Inqusition only gets about 5 small paragraphs in 382 page book that it seems like this whole inquistion thing has been down played.

I've never heard anyone downplay the Inqusition unless they were Catholics or Christians defending their faith.

Lang maybe right. It's just a new viewpoint for me. I'll have to research further. This is the only reason I gave this book a three***.

This downplaying of the Inqusition seems wrong but I may come back and give it a Five*****. An historian shouldn't just pander to the masses and go along with popular misconceptions. They are supposed to educate us about the truth. I simply don't know if what he says about the Inquisition is true since he is the first that I've heard tone it down like this. He does admit that we could have down without it but...

I'm reading Sam Harris' book End of Faith and the stories of torture make me ill and then I read Lang's book and it's like, no biggy, yea a few people were burned at the stake but hey. The contrast in reporting this event is so large. It could be that this is a Dummy book which makes light of everything which is fine...I enjoy that, but Lang does say that the stories of torture are exagerrated, so maybe Sam Harris' book is exaggerated to make us angry about religion???????????????????????

I read this whole book through; every word. I liked it. It gave an interesting, readable overview of European History. European History covers a long period of time so topics get limited time. That's OK. If I saw a topic which was interesting I can research deeper with other books. Much of European history is bloodshed, bloodshed and more bloodshed.

The topic which raised my eyebrow was the author's treatment of the Inquisition. I'll exagerate for fun: He made it seem as if people were tortured with wet noodles and feathers and the stories about horrific torture have been greatly exaggerated. He says, The stories of horrific acts of torture are popular misconceptions trumped up by a few 16th century Spanish Protestant writers with a grudge, writing under the pseudonym, "Montanus". Lang says, although torture was used; better results were had by questioning. Maybe it's because the Inqusition only gets about 5 small paragraphs in 382 page book that it seems like this whole inquistion thing has been down played.

I've never heard anyone downplay the Inqusition unless they were Catholics or Christians defending their faith.

Lang maybe right. It's just a new viewpoint for me. I'll have to research further. This is the only reason I gave this book a three***.

This downplaying of the Inqusition seems wrong but I may come back and give it a Five*****. An historian shouldn't just pander to the masses and go along with popular misconceptions. They are supposed to educate us about the truth. I simply don't know if what he says about the Inquisition is true since he is the first that I've heard tone it down like this. He does admit that we could have down without it but...

I'm reading Sam Harris' book End of Faith and the stories of torture make me ill and then I read Lang's book and it's like, no biggy, yea a few people were burned at the stake but hey. The contrast in reporting this event is so large. It could be that this is a Dummy book which makes light of everything which is fine...I enjoy that, but Lang does say that the stories of torture are exagerrated, so maybe Sam Harris' book is exaggerated to make us angry about religion???????????????????????

I took AP European History. I used this "for dummies" book in order to prepare myself for the exam. It was one of the few books that I could read without falling asleep. If I would have had this book before I took the class to give myself an idea of where the class was going, I would have saved myself a lot of pain, trouble, and headache.



The most important aspect of this book are the interesting side stories about certain individuals. They make history more personable and sometimes funny.



I would highly recommend this book for anyone interested in a *broad* overview of European History or for someone who is sick of the conventional history books.

I took AP European History. I used this "for dummies" book in order to prepare myself for the exam. It was one of the few books that I could read without falling asleep. If I would have had this book before I took the class to give myself an idea of where the class was going, I would have saved myself a lot of pain, trouble, and headache.

The most important aspect of this book are the interesting side stories about certain individuals. They make history more personable and sometimes funny.

I would highly recommend this book for anyone interested in a *broad* overview of European History or for someone who is sick of the conventional history books.