Central, northern and eastern Europe was home to subsistence farmers, living in wooden houses with mud floors, whose largest political units weighed in at no more than a few thousand people. By the year 1000, Mediterranean domination of the European landscape had been destroyed.
Instead of one huge Empire facing loosely organised subsistence farmers, Europe - from the Atlantic almost to the Urals - was home to an interacting commonwealth of Christian states, many of which are still with us today . This book tells the story of the transformations which changed western Eurasia forever: of the birth of Europe itself. |
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