End of the European Era – 1890 to the Present 6e (The Norton History of Modern Europe) Paperback – Import, 26 January 2009

We used this for European History and it wasnt very good, our teacher disliked this book but its more fitting to our teaching classes.However:- Gilbert gets too personal in his writing, the chapter on Hitler and Nazi Germany is not at all professional, its full of insults and attacks on Hitler. While nobody likes a Nazi, we still want a professional approach to them without being distracted by Gilberts own feelings.- Alot of important information is missing, nothing on Yalta or Potsdam which we needed for our exam!!! We had to use Bitesize in one class just to answer a question on the two meetings.

great

Good

This book is detailed and really does a pretty good job of explaining the events of the period. However it's let down by some really appalling mistakes in terminology. Throughout the book, the authors confuse "English" with "British". Now while many non-British people might occasionally refer to any Briton as being English in spoken conversation, that sort of mistake is not acceptable in a book. The fact that it is a mistake constantly made eventually becomes irritating. It is not a short read, so by the second chapter this was really getting on my nerves. Academics, even American ones, should know better. Also, there appear to be some newly created words that really don't roll off the tongue - like 'parliamentarism', which I assume should have been written 'parliamentarianism'. There are many examples of clumsy wording, or in some cases the unnecessary use of words where much fewer would suffice. The effect is to convey the impression that you are reading something written by an 18 year old rather than 2 adults that teach as a profession. Also, surely the reader can be given the benefit of the doubt when it comes to the Kaiser's name? Wilhelm II is translated as 'William II' - would it really have been so confusing to refer to the last German king with his actual rather than Anglicized name? Overall, a book that was more irritating than a pleasure to read. It's a long read - you can read something much better written.

Good book for my history course.