This one was slow going. Interesting though. Roughly the first half is a biogeographical history of Europe from dinosaurs on Hateg Island where the European landmass would later be, and the second half is a closer look at the last 400,000 years since hominids arrived in the area. It felt almost like reading two different yet closely related books. Fascinating and very much inspiring me to think about deep (but not too deep) time, especially the tens of thousands of years humans lived in Europe before they started building cities, and how closely in time we missed some of the most recently extinct species. Further back there were many species mentioned for which their closest modern relatives are as far afield as Australia, which surprised me.

If you are European, there is a chance you may feel othered by this book, although Flannery doesn't distance himself much from a European identity. He does however communicate a clear disdain for both Nazis and Romans (who, we hear repeatedly, failed to domesticate even a single animal!)