Our longest peace

Has anybody ever struggled for Europe? They might have struggled for British Ulster or Free France or the village green in Moreton-in-Marsh. But Europe? There are supposed to be some people around who, when they’re asked where they’re from, trumpet, ‘I’m European!’; if they really exist, they’re doing a good job of keeping themselves to themselves.

Europe is such a bulky ragbag of countries with such wildly different histories, languages and customs, that to say you’re European is about as precise as saying you’re a world citizen or a sentient being or a member of the mammal family.

And to try to write a history of Europe as an organic whole, throughout most of its existence, is ludicrous – its different bits have been at each other’s throats pretty much non-stop. The American don, William Hitchcock, is in a position to make a slightly better fist of the enterprise, writing about Europe from 1945 to the present day – its longest period of peace ever, some little local difficulties notwithstanding.

Even then, with half of the continent behind the Iron Curtain for most of that time, and the other half trying to get over the six years they spent knocking seven bells out of each other, all anyone can really do is write a joint history of the different countries that make up Europe, drawing attention to the odd cross-border overlap. This Hitchcock does, and this he does drily but impressively, piling date on date, politician on politician until his book turns into something like a very upmarket textbook, or a top-of-the-range cribsheet, on European governments, revolutions and economies. You will turn the 513th and final page of this book a very well-informed person; you will, though, be in urgent need of some non-fact-based light entertainment.