Seven memoirs help explain Europe past and present

A GOOD MEMOIR tells you a lot about a person, and even more about the times they lived in. A century of tyranny and war and finally, in some places, of democracy and peace has shaped the lives of all Europeans. Memoirists are among the best chroniclers of that history. Europe’s Sturm und Drang is like a recurring character in the autobiographies of people who themselves will never meet, except on the shelves of libraries and bookshops. As more than 350m people trudge to the polls on June 6th-9th to vote in European elections, what might they read to get a sense of their home, past and present?

No one captures the sweep of history like Stefan Zweig. A popular writer in the early 20th century, he penned vivid biographies, of Magellan and Marie-Antoinette among others, which give the impression he had long been friends with them. From the 1930s the Austrian turned his attention to the fate of Europe and to himself. As he delves into the past in the opening chapters of “The World of Yesterday”, the continent seems to be in fine fettle: how one craves to spend just one day in the early-20th-century Vienna Zweig describes, and to tag along when he drops in on Auguste Rodin in Paris. But the mood quickly darkens as Zweig witnesses the continent’s descent into madness. Soon the Nazis are burning his books (he was Jewish). He flees, eventually landing in Brazil. He posted the manuscript of this, his final book, to his publisher shortly before he and his wife committed suicide in February 1942. “The World of Yesterday” is an eerie, spellbinding read.