A New History

Europe

A new history of the idea of Europe from Ancient Greece to the present 
 
What do we talk about when we talk about Europe? Is it defined by geography? Or is it politics, or shared culture? In Europe, award-winning historian Roderick Beaton tells the story of Europe as never before - as the history of an idea, and a collective identity. 
 
Since its dramatic birth in ancient Greece, 'Europe' has been defined, and redefined, by its people. Through this powerful lens, and with the narrative drive and scope of a novelist, Beaton deftly surveys Europe’s major historical developments: the rise and fall of Rome; the explosion of Christianity; the intellectual ferment of the Renaissance and the Enlightenment; the arrival of Europeans in the Americas; the violent upheavals of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries; and the uncertainties of the present. Throughout, original sources allow the voices of the past, from Tacitus to Thatcher, to speak for themselves. 
 
Grappling with the multilayered identities that have always come with being European, Europe places the Europe of today in a long arc of history stretching back more than 2,500 years.

Praise for Roderick Beaton's previous book Greece: Biography of a Modern Nation

The best history of Greece around... Beautifully written and packed with insights about the culture and the people. I will be dipping into this book for the rest of my life

Beaton's new book - judicious, well-researched and commendably up-to-date - deserves to be the standard general history of modern Greece in English for years to come

A perceptive analysis of Greece's financial crisis, the embers of which continue to threaten to derail the single currency project of the EU

This book explores the history, not of a Greece of romantic or philhellenic imagination, but the reality of the country as it has become today. The empathy it evokes for the survival of modern Greek statehood against a recurring pattern of often existential crisis is all the more compelling, subtle and above all human in its many-sidedness. Beaton's account instantly becomes the single most outstanding treatment of its subject

A wonderfully engaging narrative... It is a superb achievement and to be recommended to anyone with even the most rudimentary interest

Roderick Beaton is Emeritus Koraes Professor of Modern Greek and Byzantine History, Language and Literature at King's College London and Chair of Trustees of the British School at Athens, an institute of advanced research. He is a four-time winner of the Runciman Award, for his books An Introduction to Modern Greek Literature, George Seferis: Waiting for the Angel: A Biography, Byron's War: Romantic Rebellion, Greek Revolution, and Greece: Biography of a Modern Nation, published by Penguin in 2019. He is a Fellow of the British Academy, Commander of the Order of Honour of the Hellenic Republic, and an honorary citizen of Greece. He was knighted in 2024.

What do we talk about when we talk about Europe? Is it defined by geography? Or is it politics, or shared culture? In Europe, award-winning historian Roderick Beaton tells the story of Europe as never before - as the history of an idea, and a collective identity. 
 
Since its dramatic birth in ancient Greece, 'Europe' has been defined, and redefined, by its people. Through this powerful lens, and with the narrative drive and scope of a novelist, Beaton deftly surveys Europe’s major historical developments: the rise and fall of Rome; the explosion of Christianity; the intellectual ferment of the Renaissance and the Enlightenment; the arrival of Europeans in the Americas; the violent upheavals of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries; and the uncertainties of the present. Throughout, original sources allow the voices of the past, from Tacitus to Thatcher, to speak for themselves. 
 
Grappling with the multilayered identities that have always come with being European, Europe places the Europe of today in a long arc of history stretching back more than 2,500 years.

Roderick Beaton

The best history of Greece around... Beautifully written and packed with insights about the culture and the people.  I will be dipping into this book for the rest of my life.

His new book - judicious, well-researched and commendably up-to-date - deserves to be the standard general history of modern Greece in English for years to come.

This book explores the history, not of a Greece of romantic or philhellenic imagination, but the reality of the country as it has become today. The empathy it evokes for the survival of modern Greek statehood against a recurring pattern of often existential crisis is all the more compelling, subtle and above all human in its many-sidedness. Beaton's account instantly becomes the single most outstanding treatment of its subject and shows us why - as Lord Palmerston expressed it succinctly for his own times - 'Greece' is an emotional word that still matters to contemporary society.

A wonderfully engaging narrative ... It is a superb achievement and to be recommended to anyone with even the most rudimentary interest

Praise for Byron's War: Indispensable

Biography of a Modern Nation

We think we know ancient Greece, the civilization that shares the same name and gave us just about everything that defines 'western' culture today, in the arts, sciences, social sciences and politics. Yet, as Greece has been brought under repeated scrutiny during the financial crises that have convulsed the country since 2010, worldwide coverage has revealed just how poorly we grasp the modern nation. This book sets out to understand the modern Greeks on their own terms. 
 
How did Greece come to be so powerfully attached to the legacy of the ancients in the first place, and then to define an identity for its people that is at once Greek and modern? This book reveals the remarkable achievement, during the last 300 years, of building a modern nation on, sometimes literally, the ruins of a vanished civilization. This is the story of the Greek nation state but also, and perhaps more fundamentally, of the collective identity that goes with it. It is not only a history of events and high politics, it is also a history of culture, of the arts, of people and of ideas.

Roderick Beaton

Praise for Greece

The best history of Greece around... Beautifully written and packed with insights about the culture and the people. I will be dipping into this book for the rest of my life.

His new book - judicious, well-researched and commendably up-to-date - deserves to be the standard general history of modern Greece in English for years to come.

This book explores the history, not of a Greece of romantic or philhellenic imagination, but the reality of the country as it has become today. The empathy it evokes for the survival of modern Greek statehood agains ...

The best history of Greece around... Beautifully written and packed with insights about the culture and the people. I will be dipping into this book for the rest of my life.

His new book - judicious, well-researched and commendably up-to-date - deserves to be the standard general history of modern Greece in English for years to come.

This book explores the history, not of a Greece of romantic or philhellenic imagination, but the reality of the country as it has become today. The empathy it evokes for the survival of modern Greek statehood agains ...

The best history of Greece around... Beautifully written and packed with insights about the culture and the people. I will be dipping into this book for the rest of my life.

His new book - judicious, well-researched and commendably up-to-date - deserves to be the standard general history of modern Greece in English for years to come.

This book explores the history, not of a Greece of romantic or philhellenic imagination, but the reality of the country as it has become today. The empathy it evokes for the survival of modern Greek statehood agains ...

Books by Roderick Beaton

Follow penguin

Follow ladybird

Follow puffin

Sign up to the Penguin newsletter