British professor Jeremy Black specializes in sweeping overviews of history, charting the key events, major movements, and significant developments of societies as they evolve and interact with one another. Illustrated with period art, artifacts, maps, or photos on every page, these highly visual histories provide an essential grounding in the events that have made our world what it is today.

European history is violent, dramatic, and wildly contradictory. The continent has witnessed devastating warfare, the rise and fall of empires, unhinged rulers, and religious strife, but also cultural awakenings, remarkable inventions and achievements, and ideological movements that have shaped the rest of the world. Here Jeremy Black weaves together diverse strands of history from the classical eras of Rome and Greece to the cultural achievements of the Renaissance and the fall of the Berlin Wall.