European History for Dummies |
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| Title: | European History for Dummies |
| Author: | Sean Lang |
| Publisher: | For Dummies |
| Type: | Book / Paperback |
| Publication Date: | 04 February, 2008 |
| ISBN / ISBN-13: | 0764570609 / 9780764570605 |
| List Price: | $19.99 |
| You Save: | $6.40 |
| Amazon Price: | $13.59 |
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This book is also available, brand-new, from 3rd-party marketplace sellers at Amazon.com, from $7.78.
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Editorial Review / Publisher's Information:
Product Description
A fun, informative guide to Europe’s past and present. The history of Europe is rich, complex, vibrant, and at times violent; it has influenced many countries throughout the world and has itself been influenced by many countries. In the light-hearted European History For Dummies, historian Sean Lang explores the countries, conflicts, people, institutions, disasters, and triumphs that have helped shape modern-day Europe, packing in tons of facts alongside the fun. Chapters range from "Celts without Kilts" and "What a Way to Run a Republic!" to "I Capture Quite a Few Castles," "Reformation Ruckus," and "The War to End All Wars." Sean Lang, the author of British History For Dummies (0-7645-7021-8), is also a history lecturer, examiner, and writer.
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Customer Reviews:
• Good ...but...
31 December, 2007
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???????????????????????
- Amazon Customer Review
• Making History Interesting!
20 May, 2007
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.
- Amazon Customer Review
• Superficial, Biased And Glib
24 January, 2009
This is a vacuous, oversimplified mess. The author glibly makes wisecracks that are either insulting to people from early days or are incomprehensible to someone seeking to learn a few facts of European History. I will also say that I got the book because I have been reading a complete history of the Popes and I wanted to "fit" each Pope into his proper historical period- well guess what? I imagine because this is under the "dummies" title - but the author rarely tells you the YEARS that each of the rulers reigned, with a few exceptions, of course - the result it that the middle ages, as per usual, blends into a goofy, society of creative anachronisms type of stew.
Skip this if you want to learn anything about history. I also agree with the other poster regarding the downplaying and negligible discussion of the inquisition - and I am a Roman Catholic. Let's not rewrite history.
- Amazon Customer Review
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