In Europe : Travels Through the Twentieth Century

Author(s): Geert Mak (tr from Dutch Sam Garrett)

Travel

Geert Mak spent the year 1999 criss-crossing the continent, tracing the history of Europe from Verdun to Berlin, St Petersburg to Auschwitz, Kiev to Srebrenica. He set off in search of evidence and witnesses, looking to define the condition of Europe at the verge of a new millennium. The result is mesmerising: Mak's rare double talent as a sharp-eyed journalist and a hugely imaginative historian makes In Europe a dazzling account of that journey, full of diaries, newspaper reports and memoirs, and the voices of prominent figures and unknown players; from the grandson of Kaiser Wilhelm II to Adriana Warno in Poland, with her holiday job at the gates of the camp at Birkenau.But Mak is above all an observer. He describes what he sees at places that have become Europe's well-springs of memory, where history is written into the landscape. At Ypres he hears the blast of munitions from the Great War that are still detonated twice a day. In Warsaw he finds the point where the tram rails that led to the Jewish ghetto come to a dead end in a city park. First published in Dutch 2004; this translation 2007.


Product Information

A spellbinding history of 20th-century Europe that has the scope, pace and same capacity to delight as that of any epic novel.

Geert Mak is a journalist and historian, and one of Holland's bestselling writers; his books include Amsterdam and Jorwerd.

General Fields

  • : 9780099516736
  • : Vintage Publishing
  • : Vintage
  • : 0.609
  • : March 2008
  • : 198mm X 135mm X 37mm
  • : United Kingdom
  • : books

Special Fields

  • : Geert Mak (tr from Dutch Sam Garrett)
  • : Paperback
  • : 508
  • : 914.04559
  • : 896