The opening sentence of Norman Davies’ blockbuster Europe: A History (1996) notes that ‘History can be written at any magnification’. Yet the superlative asserted in the title of John Hirst’s latest book does bring one up, well, short. Its claim is plainly contestable – how about ‘Plato to NATO’ (the irreverent shorthand for once-fashionable US undergraduate ‘Western Civ.’ survey courses)? Moreover, Hirst makes no pretence of giving us Europe from go to whoa. Commencing with the ‘Ancient Greeks’ (omitting Minoans and Myceneans), he concludes around 1800 with the French Revolution and Napoleon, because the lecture course at La Trobe University from which his book derives went no further. These lectures were first offered ‘to students in Australia who had had too much Australian history and knew too little about the civilisation of which they are a part’. This is a remarkable statement from a distinguished historian of Australia, even granted the growing recognition that what usually passes for ‘Australian history’ cannot in and of itself meet all the cultural, educational and intellectual needs of Australian students.