Lotharingia: A Personal History of Europe’s Lost Country by Simon Winder
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is the third volume of the author’s trilogy of personal histories of Europe, the first two being Germania and Danubia, concerning Germany and the Habsburg lands respectively. As usual, Mr. Winder takes the “personal history” part seriously – the narrative is very anecdotal and jumps from place to place, though it does remain in chronological order, more or less.

The subject of this volume is Europe’s “lost country” – the lands of Lothar, from the Treaty of Verdun in 843, where Charelmagne’s empire was divided between his three grandsons. One part became Germany, another part became the basis for France and the part in between was given to Lothar. It stretches from the Low Countries to Switzerland and Italy, but never really became a nation-state.

As always, the anecdotal style is somewhat problematical for the narrative, but it is entertaining and easy to read. There is a lot of history here, but because things are scattered geographically, it can be hard to keep track of where things are taking place. The maps do help, but it can be a little confusing in places.

Overall I enjoyed the book, but I think it is not as quite as good as the previous two volumes.