The Pursuit of Europe
Anthony Pagden
OUP, £25
How the idea for a union of European states developed, from the end of the Napoleonic Wars up to modern times, is the subject. Though the idea of Europe has existed since antiquity, it was the 18th-century Enlightenment that introduced the concept of its being somewhere between the "nation" and "humanity" in general. The twin planks it came to be based on were "civil society" and acceptance of the need to co-operate on a "unity in diversity" basis. Anthony Pagden traces that evolution through the minds of statesmen and philosophers taking in, among other events, the French Revolution and the emergence of nation states, the growth of nationalism, the spread of imperialism, the devastating 20th-century warfare and how the European Union came about. Not an easy but a valuable and important read. Brian Maye
One Body
Catherine Simpson
Saraband, £9.99
Catherine Simpson terms her latest work a retrospective, rather than a memoir. A retrospective can be a look back, an attempt to come to terms with something, a dialogue with the past. It can also constitute an exhibition focusing on the development of an artist's work. Simpson's retrospective is both of these things. She writes with a characteristic bluntness that she was not raised with permission to be ill, and she explores the idea that functionality is connected to an individual's worth with grace and dark humour.
Even though some of this ground has already been explored in her previous memoir, When I Had a Little Sister, the reader would be forgiven for being wary of repetition, of themes that have been worked too hard. But this seems to be part of Simpson's talent: to return to an old story and tell the reader something new with it. Becky Long
Otherlands : A World in the Making
Thomas Halliday
Allen Lane, £20
An impressive, tightly packed, long view of the natural world. In cinematic terms, this book would be a blockbuster. Halliday is a palaeobiologist who expertly guides the reader on a deep-time trip of how the Earth existed millions of years ago. He vividly recreates worlds in which fossils were laid down across geological epochs, up to the last of the "big five" mass extinctions 66 million years ago, which together make up the Cenozoic, our own era. Moving through some chapters will leave you wondering at our anthropocentric view of the Earth's history all the same, while also admiring our skills in fighting our corner (even if we're now choosing a road towards self destruction). Riveting scientific reading; a remarkable achievement of imagination grounded in fact. NJ McGarrigle
