A Times, Financial Times and Telegraph Political Book of the Year 2023
'Illuminates some of the great trends of our time' - Gideon Rachman, Financial Times
'Vivid, urgent and unsettling' - Tom Holland, author of Dominion
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What does it now mean to call yourself European? Who makes up this population of some 750 million, sprawled from Ireland to Ukraine, from Sweden to Turkey? Who has always called it home, and who has newly arrived from elsewhere? Who are the people who drive our long-distance lorries, steward our criss-crossing planes, lovingly craft our legacy wines, fish our depleted waters, and risk life itself in search of safety and a new start?
In a series of vivid, ambitious, darkly visceral but always empathetic portraits of other people’s lives, journalist Ben Judah invites us to meet them. Drawn from hours of painstaking interviews, these vital stories reveal a frenetic and vibrant continent which has been transformed by diversity, migration, the internet, climate change, Covid, war and the quest for freedom.
Laid dramatically bare, it may not always be a Europe we recognize – but this is Europe.
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'An astonishing achievement' - Evening Standard
'Brilliantly told . . . highly readable' - The Times
'Unflinching' - The Guardian