People Migrations in Europe and America: Nation Building Prehistory to 1913 (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9781539825388)

Read about the continuous evolving of culture, languages, artistic and architectural skills, life styles, science and music over a span of 4000 years. Tribes and nations claimed land and constantly changed their borders, codes of justice and creeds. All this is carefully documented. Dates are kept at the left as a visual aid to enable readers to compare simultaneous migrations from mid Asia and middle east, into north Africa, Italy, Spain, southeast and NE Europe, Scandinavia, Britain and up the rivers into Europe and Russia.

Broad world view came through ship building Norsemen, Vikings, Muslims and Portuguese. Naval power grew through trading of spices, metals, gold and furs by Spanish, Dutch and British seamen. Explorers mapped the world, settled colonists and created botanical gardens. Diseases that explorers were immune to, devastated indigenous people. Education and growing self-government evolved.

The author discovered and documented much valuable cultural history, ignored by previous historians, such as the contribution of Muslims to the Renaissance. Another example of neglected history is that a grand daughter of "good king" Wenceslas of Bohemia/Moravia married Richard II of England. Her courtiers studied under John Wycliffe at Oxford and brought the Bible to Jon Hus, Chancellor of Charles University, Bohemia-Moravia. Throughout the 600 years since 1415 when Hus was martyred, the significance of the Unitas Fratrum (Moravian Brethren) has been great. Few Lutherans realize how much their churches were revived by thousands of Br der Gemine (small mid-week fellowships) developed by Moravians in Europe, the Baltic States and Volhynia (now north half of the Ukraine) while refraining from "sheep-stealing". Some East Europeans are aware of their continuing influence.

Their missions began 1732 to 1736 in the West Indies, Greenland, England, Georgia and Pennsylvania. They influenced John and Charles Wesley who began the Methodist movement.

Being pacifists they did not take up arms, but provided food and much animal fodder and care for the wounded of huge armies, of both sides in the Napoleonic and other wars in Europe, and in the American War of Independence and Civil War.

Educators can benefit from the scholarly, practical books of Bishop Comenius (1592-1670) p 77]. He reformed education of boys and girls in Poland, Sweden, Denmark, Hungary, Romania, Holland and England.

Few people know that educated Huguenots (French Protestants) were scattered during the Inquisition to England, Prussia, the West Indies, Acadia (New England) and South Africa, and that they established silk production, vineyards and ship-building. Jacques Cartier, Samuel de Champlain and other early explorers were Huguenots, who brought good government to North America and other continents.

Massacres of various nonconformists were under-reported, perhaps because of embarrassment to either church or state. People concerned about ethnic cleansing could benefit from reading this book.

While national boundaries kept changing, this history of Europe and America is kept interrelated, comprehensive and yet concise. Human interest bits featuring ethnic, social, political and religious movements, are interwoven to correct insularity, and to awaken the interest of students bored with history. Content is arranged to appeal to a broad spectrum of interest and academic discipline and for people researching family history and genealogy. Although the author is Canadian, academics and students throughout the Americas and Europe can gain fresh appreciation of their own history and that of other nations and cultures.

Of great value are the Table of Contents, the 172 item Bibliography and 85 page Appendix A: Index and Catalogue of Events, all in one volume.