[Dummies 01] • European History for Dummies by Lang, Seán -- Read -- Imperial Library of Trantor

Index

Title Contents Introduction

About This Book Conventions Used in This Book Foolish Assumptions How This Book Is Organised Icons Used in This Book Where to Go from Here

Part I : Origins of a Continent

Chapter 1: Not So Much a Continent As a View of Life

Where Is Europe? How Many Europes? Is There Such a Thing as European Civilisation? Why Does Europe Have So Many Languages? Is There a European Culture? What of Europe Lies beyond Europe? Divided Europe or United Europe? This Must Never Happen Again!

Chapter 2: The Stone Age Rocks

Three Stone Ages for the Price of One Rummaging Through the Dustbins of History Out of Africa . . . We Think The First Europeans Down on the (Stone Age) Farm Meet the Flint Stones Mining Metal

Part II : Europe of the Ancients

Chapter 3: You’re Ancient History!

Greece Is the Word Living in a Polis State Squaring Up to the Persians My Big Fat Greek Civil War Macedonia and Alexander the Great What a Way to Run a (Roman) Republic! The Phoenicians – Coming to a Coastline Near You

Chapter 4: The Ups and Downs of the Roman Empire

War, Seduction, Murder, and War Again: The New Roman Empire The Emperor’s New (Purple) Clothes You Probably Wouldn’t Want to Be an Emperor Getting an Empire A Civilised People – Give or Take the Odd Gladiatorial Combat The Beginning of the End of Empire

Part III : Middle Ages

Chapter 5: Dancing in the Dark Ages

Meet Constantine Changing My Religion That’s a Very Interesting Question, Arius And Lo, There Came Invaders from the East How the West Was Won Yet More Barbarian Raiders The (Eastern) Empire Strikes Back Let’s Be Frank The Incredible Rise of Islam

Chapter 6: Gold, Murder, and Frankish Sense

Let’s Get This Church on the Road Crisis in the East Don’t Live Like an Egyptian: Christianity in the West Who You Gonna Call? The Franks! Holy Doctrinal Difference, Batman! Axes of Evil: Enter the Vikings

Chapter 7: Knock, Knock, Knocking Heads at Heaven’s Door

I’m the King of the Germans Russia Gets Religion Turkish Delight The Crusades Playing Crusades at Home Too Much Power to the Pope The German Emperors Fancy Ruling Somewhere Warm Vespers in Sicily Just Who’s in Charge in France? A Sunset in the East: The Ottoman Turks

Chapter 8: Don’t Call Us Medieval!

Why the Term ‘Middle Ages’? We’re All Doomed! Religion University Challenge The Great Cathedrals Castles, Chivalry, and Knights Managing Money – The Medieval Way The Black Death

Part IV : New Ideas, New Worlds

Chapter 9: Back to the Future: The Renaissance

Small City States – Beautiful but Very Vulnerable Forty Years of ‘Peace’: The Italian League The Roots of the Renaissance: Italy The Birth of Renaissance Man The Body Beautiful: Renaissance Art So Much Art, So Little Time One Good Turn for Milan, 60 Years of War for Italy The Renaissance Heads North The Reigns in Spain

Chapter 10: Reformation Ruckus

We Three Kings Charles and His Many Royal Duties The Dangerous Business of Criticising the Church Roll Up! Roll Up! Climb the Stairway to Heaven Curb Your Enthusiasm – The Radicals Germany Prepares for Civil War A Rôle for the Swiss What Was Happening in the Rest of Europe? The French Revelation

Chapter 11: Mass and Massacre: The Wars of Religion

Charles V’s Bad Dreams First Choose Your Pope – But Not Adrian! The Italian Job: Milan Is Mine! Following in Father’s Footsteps: King Henry II This Pope Was Made for Talking: Pope Paul III I’m the King of the World! Just Put It in One of Philip II’s Many ‘Urgent Business’ Piles France’s Wars of Religion

Chapter 12: Tsar Wars

The Ottomans: New Improved Turks Alexander Nevsky’s Ragtime Band Knights in White Satin Princes of Denmark

Chapter 13: Absolute Power: The Sun King Rises

Give Me Liberties or Give Me Death Trouble Brews in Germany Rudolf’s Mad Reign Bohemian Rhapsody: The Letter of Majesty Sweden’s Martial Kings Not So Fast, Ferdinand II! It Is I, Richelieu! Did You Really Think France Was Finished?

Part V : Europe Rules the World

Chapter 14: The (Almost) Irresistible Rise of France and Russia

Spain’s Decline – It’s Terminal A Golden Age in Holland England on the Up Expanding Overseas Hold It Right There, King Louis XIV! Who’s the Prince Most Likely to Succeed (to the Spanish Throne, That Is)? Sunset in the West: Exit Louis XIV The Nobility of Poland-Lithuania Invite Us into Their Beautiful Home Sweden: All Seems Fine A Deadly Game of Russian Roulette Viennese Whirl

Chapter 15: Seeking Enlightenment

Faith or Reason? The Militant Middle Classes Encylopaedia Spells Trouble Principals with Principles: The Enlightened Despots Prussia’s Brandenburg Concerto Prussia Invades Silesia Enlightenment Europe Please Don’t Give Joseph II Ideas Poland Polished Off The American Revolution France on the Brink

Chapter 16: France Catches a Cold – and We’re All Still Sneezing

The French Have Problems, Problems . . . One for You, Five for Me: Privilege The Estates General to the Rescue! Fear and Looting in the Country This Means War! (and Terror) Er, Thank You, General Bonaparte, We’ll Take Over from Here The Bourbons Are Back So, Why Was the French Revolution So Important?

Chapter 17: Grime Wave: Europe Gets Industrial

A Touch of Romanticism Is It Me, or Is It Getting More Crowded? Rage Against the Machine I’m A-getting Outta Here: Emigration More Than a Touch of Class Marx and Sparks That’s Progress Mr Darwin’s Interesting Ideas

Chapter 18: Building Nations

What Was So New about the Idea of a Nation? I Don’t Know: You Liberate People, and Then They Want to Rule Themselves Napoleon’s Europe That’s Quite Enough Popular Nationalism for One Century Europe’s Age of Revolution Well, Napoleon III, What Next? Honey, I United the Italians Bismarck: One Part Blood, Three Parts Iron The Franco–Prussian War

Part VI : Europe Tears Itself in Two

Chapter 19: Europe’s Age of Empire

Carnage in Paris The French Try a Republic . . . Again Africa Scrambled Germany on the Up Collective Insecurity Russia Works Out Which Century It Is Buy Austria, Get Hungary Free! Serbia: A Small State, Thinking Big

Chapter 20: The War to End All Wars – Doesn’t

One Big Happy Family General von Schlieffen’s Cunning Plan It’ll All Be Over by Christmas The Russians Are Coming Trenches in the West Coming Full Circle: Serbia and Salonika Italy Finally Joins In War with the Turks War at Sea You Win Some, You Lose Some (Allies, That Is) How It All Ended Whose Fault Was the First World War?

Chapter 21: Revolution in Russia

A Tsar Is Born A Little War . . . Russia Goes to War and Gets a Revolution We’ll Have None of That Democracy Nonsense Here War Against the Peasants Would You Buy a Used Economic Policy from This Man?

Chapter 22: Europe Goes to Extremes

The Yank Is Coming – and So Are His Fourteen Points Not Very Blessed Peacemakers: The Paris Peace Conference The League of (Some) Nations The Italians: Fuming at Fiume Can We Play Dictators, Too? Whatever Happened to Leon Trotsky? Stalin’s Russia No Pasaran! Fascists versus Communists How to Win Land and Intimidate People: The Anti-Comintern Pact

Chapter 23: World War to Cold War

Lightning War: Blitzkrieg A Phoney War in the West Game Over. Isn’t it? Hitler’s New Order The Holocaust We’re Going to Have Real Problems If We Win Time to Sort This Mess Out: Marshall Aid Disconnecting People A Cold War Deutschland, Deutschland unter Alles: Germany Divided

Chapter 24: Eurovision

Watch Where You’re Pointing That Missile: NATO and the Warsaw Pact Who Do You Think You Are Kidding, Colonel Nasser? Should I Stay or Should I Go? Rock the Casbah: The French Won’t Go Quietly Let’s Be Friends: France and Germany Generals Come, and Generals Go The Cold War Gets Frostier What Comes Next?

Part VII : The Part of Tens

Chapter 25: Ten Europeans Who Dominated the Continent

Gaius Julius Caesar circa 100 B.C. – 44 B.C. Philip II of Spain, 1526–1598 Louis XIV of France, 1638–1715 Napoleon Bonaparte, 1769–1821 Adolf Hitler, 1889–1945 The Volkswagen ‘beetle’, 1938–2003 Thomas Cook, 1808–1892 Pasta Real Madrid, 1956–1960 ABBA, 1972–1982

Chapter 26: Ten Days That Shook Europe – and the World

22 May 337: Constantine the Great is Converted 29 May 1453: Constantinople Falls to the Turks 22 November 1497: Vasco da Gama Rounds the Cape of Good Hope 21 September 1520: Martin Luther Is Excommunicated 26 August 1789: Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen 13 December 1901: Marconi Sends the First Transatlantic Radio Signal 29 May 1906: Finnish Women Get the Vote 25 May 1940: Penicillin Is Successfully Trialled 1 December 1934: Sergei Mironovich Kirov Is Murdered 6 August 1991: Tim Berners-Lee Launches the World Wide Web

Chapter 27: Ten Places (apart from Naples) to See Before You Die

The Standing Stones of Carnac Knossos: Palace of the Minotaur Ostia: A Roman Town in the Roman Suburbs Hagia Sophia – Church and Mosque Where West Meets East Aachen – Palace of Charlemagne The Islamic Beauty of the Alhambra The Vasa: The Ship That Rose from the Sea Sarajevo – Moving On from the Bullets Berlin: The City That Came Back from the Dead The Tragedy of Oradour sur Glane

Chapter 28: Ten Things Europe (and the World) Could Have Done Without

Antisemitism The Inquisition The Black Death Sugar King Leopold II of Belgium The Berlin Wall Russian Passport and Border Control French Plumbing Lederhosen Kraftwerk

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