Overview
A renowned Pulitzer Prize–winning historian recounts the dramatic tale of modern Europe’s ascent. In The Mighty Continent: A Candid History of Modern Europe, Walter McDougall, winner of the Pulitzer Prize and professor of history at the University of Pennsylvania, provides readers with a sweeping historical narrative that takes in the political, economic, social, intellectual, and cultural developments in the major European nations from the fifteenth to the twenty-first century. Along the way, McDougall provides new insights on and interpretations of the Renaissance, the Protestant and Catholic Reformations, the Age of Exploration, the Scientific, French, and Industrial Revolutions, the sources of modernism, the origins of World War I, the rise of totalitarianism, the advance of the European Union, the collapse of communism, and much else. Comprehensive yet compact, objective yet unabashed, attuned to European failings yet refreshingly free from cloying moralism, The Mighty Continent is history as it used to be: exciting, uplifting, ironic, not infrequently tragic—and, above all, fair to the figures who made modern Europe so world-shakingly powerful and inescapably influential.
Full Product Details
Author: Walter A. McDougall
Publisher: Creed & Culture Books
Imprint: Creed & Culture
Dimensions:
Width: 15.20cm
, Height: 5.90cm
, Length: 22.90cm
ISBN: 9781967613007
ISBN 10: 1967613001
Pages: 466
Publication Date: 05 March 2026
Audience:
General/trade
,
General
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Forthcoming
Availability: Not yet available
This item is yet to be released. You can pre-order this item and we will dispatch it to you upon its release.
Reviews
""Written with clarity, verve, and wit, The Mighty Continent is the triumphant capstone of a learned scholar's brilliant career. In a sweeping and compulsively readable narrative, Walter McDougall invests the story of Europe's past with freshness, originality, and profound insights. History doesn't get any better than this.""--Andrew Bacevich, Professor Emeritus of History and International Relations, Boston University ""An important and fascinating book about European intellectual, political, and economic history--and also a commentary on the state of the West today--The Mighty Continent is a Gibbonesque tale about why and how countries and civilizations rise, reform, change, evolve, and fall. Full of stories and surprises, this is truly a book to be savored, to be read and re-read, chapter by stand-alone chapter.""--David Eisenhower, author, Going Home to Glory: A Memoir of Life with Dwight Eisenhower, 1961-1969
“Written with clarity, verve, and wit, The Mighty Continent is the triumphant capstone of a learned scholar's brilliant career. In a sweeping and compulsively readable narrative, Walter McDougall invests the story of Europe's past with freshness, originality, and profound insights. History doesn't get any better than this.”—Andrew Bacevich, Professor Emeritus of History and International Relations, Boston University “An important and fascinating book about European intellectual, political, and economic history—and also a commentary on the state of the West today—The Mighty Continent is a Gibbonesque tale about why and how countries and civilizations rise, reform, change, evolve, and fall. Full of stories and surprises, this is truly a book to be savored, to be read and re-read, chapter by stand-alone chapter.”—David Eisenhower, author, Going Home to Glory: A Memoir of Life with Dwight Eisenhower, 1961–1969 “If I had my druthers, this erudite book, written with a keen eye for the telling detail, would be required reading for every official of the European Union (not to mention every British parliamentarian and senior civil servant). They might come to understand that many of Europe's current troubles derive from an ignorance of, or disdain for, those three historical pillars of Western civilization: Greek philosophy, biblical religion, and Roman law—a heritage of which Americans badly need reminding, too.”—George Weigel, Distinguished Senior Fellow, Ethics and Public Policy Center “Walter McDougall renders here a throwback to the grand narrative history of old, full of meaning and human insight and devoid of the postmodern cant and woke sensibilities that now dominate academic scholarship. This book chronicles Europe’s remarkable rise in broad sweeps of descriptive prose enlivened throughout by myriad telling details. For lovers of history, The Mighty Continent will be as enticing as it is enlightening.”—Robert Merry, author, Decade of Disunion: How Massachusetts and South Carolina Led the Way to Civil War
Author Information
Walter A. McDougall is the Alloy-Ansin Professor of International Relations and Professor of History at the University of Pennsylvania. A graduate of Amherst College and a Vietnam veteran, he received his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in 1974 and taught at UC Berkeley for thirteen years before coming to Penn, where he teaches U.S., European, and Asia/Pacific diplomatic history. McDougall’s books include . . . the Heavens and the Earth: A Political History of the Space Age (winner of the Pulitzer Prize); Let the Sea Make a Noise: A History of the North Pacific From Magellan to MacArthur; Freedom Just Around the Corner: A New American History 1585–1828, Throes of Democracy: The American Civil War Era 1829–1877, and The Tragedy of U.S. Foreign Policy: How American Civil Religion Betrayed the National Interest. McDougall loves Chicago sports, Christian theology, and all genres of music from Bach to Bob Dylan. He and his “Wonder Wife” Jonna reside in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania.
