Dreams and Nightmares: Europe in the twentieth century

So much abuse has been heaped on the European Union in recent years that it is easy to forget that Europe and the EU are not the same thing. Geert Mak reminds us of this fact. He is one of the most celebrated journalists and commentators in the Netherlands. Mak – widely read, multi-lingual and endlessly curious – considers the whole of Europe to be his home. He has won awards for his books in Germany, as well as in his native Holland, and been inducted into the Legion d’Honneur in France. He is also, on the side, a bit of an anglophile.

In 1999, with millennial fever rising, Mak was commissioned by the centre-left Dutch newspaper NRC Handelsblad to set off on an epic journey. His brief: to visit every corner of Europe, from Dublin to Moscow and from Stockholm to Palermo, and to provide an audit of the Continent after what was almost certainly the most shocking and eventful century in its history.