Charlemagne

There is not a single bad sentence in Derek Wilson's biography Charlemagne. The book is a model of lucidity, clarity, and scholarship. Charlemagne "invented" Europe, really Western Christendom, through force of arms, force of will, and an evangelizing zeal. That his empire -- in its boundaries reconstituted as the European Economic Community in 1957 -- dissolved within a century of his death does not diminish his accomplishments, which in fact and in legend were to influence Europe for a thousand years. The emperor who could not write (but who could read) is shown to be a tireless advocate for scholarship and education. By modern standards a tyrant, Charlemagne emerges from Wilson's pages as a giant of civilization.