What do we talk about when we talk about Europe? Is it defined by geography? Or is it politics, or shared culture? In Europe: A New History (Allen Lane, 2026),
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
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 also the author of The Greeks: A Global History.
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 2025.
Morteza Hajizadeh
is a Ph.D. graduate in English from the University of Auckland in New
Zealand. His research interests are Cultural Studies; Critical Theory;
Environmental History; Medieval (Intellectual) History; Gothic Studies;
18th
and 19th Century British Literature.
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