Europe: A Natural History is a non-fiction book by Australian scientist, explorer and conservationist, Tim Flannery. In his introduction he says he aims to "answer three great questions. How was Europe formed? How was its extraordinary history discovered? And why did Europe come to be so important in the world?"
To achieve this, Flannery needs to give the reader a LOT of information. It is quickly apparent that he is an expert in this field, so distilling the wealth of his knowledge into a manageable 300 pages (excluding comprehensive Endnotes and Index) would have been no enviable task. And the information is accessible: relatively easy to follow for a novice, with abundant references should the reader's interest is piqued by a certain topic.
This could all be terribly dry, dusty and maybe a bit boring, but this is Tim Flannery, so readers shouldn't be surprised to find themselves laughing out loud fairly regularly: "Between 30 million and one million years ago painted frogs abounded in Europe, but then they became extinct. In 1940 biologists collected two adult frogs and two tadpoles in the vicinity of Lake Hula, in what is now Israel. To everyone's astonishment, they were painted frogs. The larger of the two promptly ate its smaller companion…"
If many of the creatures that Flannery writes about are incredibly bizarre, then no less odd and frequently quirky are some of the people who discover, investigate, study and write about all those rocks, fossils and life forms. For example, Hans Stehlin who "…had become something of a legend for his dogged pursuit of palaeontology, but it seems there was more to his dedication than scientific interest. According to museum folklore he had been thwarted in love, and to forget his misfortune had poured all his energy and passion into his work. Handsome, with a Freud-like beard and piercing eyes, it was also said that he had perfected the death stare. Whenever he required the skeleton of some exotic beast to compare with h

I had previously read Mr Flannery's "The Eternal Frontier" (which was excellent), so I was quite interested to read his "Europe A Natural History". Not disappointed, he effortlessly covers vast swaths of time w/o becoming bogged down, or dragging out the narrative, but also not skimping on odd, interesting, or puzzlesome details. Highly recommend this book.

I read this book - the entire book - in a single day. I found this book fantastically interesting and impossible to put down. I couldn't recommend reading this book more.

good to follow the progression over time of evolution in plants, animals, neanderthals, hybrids to human, and in such a readable and enthralling fashion. Always enjoy reading Tim Flannery...