This is a historical masterpiece extending from the Ice Age to the Atomic Age, which designed a space-time coordinate system for European history. It shows a rare overall historical impression. This book takes time as the main line and advances gradually from fast to slow. Chapter 1 covers the prehistoric period of millions of years, and the last chapter discusses the 46-year history from World War II to the year when this book was published.

Norman Davies captured all the historical events: the rise and decline of Rome, the large-scale invasion of Arachik and Atila, the Norman conquest, the power struggle of Roman Catholicism, the renaissance and reform of literature and art, the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars, the rise of Europe as a world power center and its decline due to two devastating world wars. This is the first European history that pays equal attention to Eastern Europe and Western Europe.

The uniqueness of this book lies in the selection, rearrangement and expression of content. It combines traditional narrative style with unique close-ups, making vivid historical events and people jump to the page: 299 "brief introductions" (knowledge windows) about all aspects of each era are scattered all over the book, and the topics introduced cross the boundaries of each chapter and describe all kinds of strange things and ideas,' which are usually ignored by over-serious historians; 12 "snapshot" overlooks the panorama of Europe in a specific historical period from the best point of view, which is like stopping the rapid process of time advancement and territorial expansion, helping readers to breathe a sigh of relief and examine these major historical changes, and reflecting the rich and diverse changes of European history like a prism: 100 maps and charts, with 72 pictures covering the whole history of Europe. All these show that Davis's History of Europe is one of the most valuable and convincing historical works published in recent years.

The author completed most of the contents of this book at Oxford University, referring to the rich and ancient materials of the Oxford University Library, and also getting help from the Ukrainian Institute of Harvard University and the Vienna Institute of Humanities.

The first edition of the original work was published by Oxford University Press on 1996 and has been translated into dozens of languages. According to the revised edition published by 1997 Puelm rico company, this book was translated by experts and scholars from the Institute of World History of China Academy of Social Sciences, Renmin University of Tsinghua University, China, Capital Normal University and Liaocheng University.