Europe: A History is a book by Norman Davies, the British and Polish historian whose career took him across some of Europe's most debated academic territory. It remains the title most closely tied to his name among the several works he produced over the course of a long scholarly life.

Davies was born on 8 June 1939 in Bolton and studied at Magdalen College and the University of Sussex before pursuing further education at the Jagiellonian University in Kraków. That Polish connection proved central to his academic identity. He became UNESCO Professor at the Jagiellonian University, a visiting professor at the Collège d'Europe, and professor emeritus at University College London. He also held an honorary fellowship at St Antony's College, Oxford. Beyond Europe: A History, his authored works include God's Playground, White Eagle, Red Star, and Vanished Kingdoms: The History of Half-Forgotten Europe.

The honours Davies accumulated reflected both his British and Polish standing. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, the Royal Historical Society, and the British Academy. Polish institutions recognised him with the Saint George Medal, the Andrzej Drawicz Award, the Polonia Mater Nostra Est distinction, and the Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland. The Jagiellonian University awarded him an honorary doctorate. He worked as a historian and university teacher whose appointments and distinctions stretched across two countries and several leading academic institutions.

In 2014, Davies was granted Polish citizenship, a formal acknowledgement of the ties he had built with Poland over the course of his career. That grant of citizenship stands as a concrete marker of how thoroughly his work as a British-born historian had become bound up with Polish history and Polish academic life.