This is Europe

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What to expect

A Times, Financial Times and Telegraph 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 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 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

Critics Review

Thrilling, first-hand tales that explore the danger and ambitions of life in Europe.
The Financial Times, A Book of the Year 2023
If you wish to know what Europe is becoming without us in its club, you'd do well to read Ben Judah's This Is Europe.
Telegraph, A Book of the Year 2023
Imagine Ballard and Houellebecq teaming up on a Grand Tour, and you will have some idea of just how vivid, urgent and unsettling this superbly written book is.
Tom Holland
Unflinching . . . a powerful piece of reportage.
The Guardian
An extraordinary series of interviews.
Rory Stewart
Deeply empathetic. Judah is an ace reporter with a novelist's love of character. He conjures people and place in a modern literary form he has made his own. There's no romance to this journey across Europe — but an abundance of story which will make you lurch between fascination, laughter and tears.
Sophy Roberts, author of The Lost Pianos of Siberia
Makes you expand the boundaries of your sympathies and your understanding. It’s an astonishing achievement.
Evening Standard
A kaleidoscope of bright human experience. Moving, poignant and compelling – I devoured this in a day.
Jenny Kleeman, author of Sex Robots & Vegan Meat
Brilliantly vivid.
Daily Mail
Illuminating . . . a bold literary and journalistic experiment. Judah knows how to tell a story and does so with panache.
The Spectator
Ben Judah has the ability to listen and retell, see and describe, feel and convey . . . Judah paints another Europe with intense and dramatic detail – a Europe that you may not recognize, but that you will look for every day having read this book.
Andrey Kurkov, author of Death and the Penguin
An impressive work, like a chorus.
TLS
Superb . . . a compelling read.
The New European
A hallucinatory tour de force . . . life affirming.
The Jewish Chronicle
Such an ambitious project it automatically deserves applause . . . reminds us that below every system and conflict there are human beings.
Irish Times
Captivating.
Le Monde
A singular journalistic achievement.
The Fence
A fabulous book.
France Culture
'Poignant and powerful . . . reveals a Europe in a time of profound change.
Diplomatic Courier
Pick a chapter and you will be dropped in the middle of a fascinating tale . . . absorbing and addictive.
Politico podcast
Sprawling, impressionistic, occasionally exhilarating . . . narratives which rest upon the force of raw experience.
European Review of Books
A masterpiece emphasising to the reader that the ‘other’ could always be ‘me’.
Paschal Donohoe

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