Philip T. Hoffman is Emeritus Professor of Business Economics and History at the California Institute of Technology. A Guggenheim Fellow and former president of the Economic History Association and the Social Science History Association, he is also the author of Dark Matter Credit (2019).

• 1. Introduction; 2. Europe's advantages: demography, agriculture, and the environment; 3. War, conquest, and politics in Europe's rise; 4. Ideas, beliefs, and culture; 5. Why Britain was the first country in Europe to industrialize; 6. Institutions and Britain's pioneering industrialization; 7. Why some economies grew rich and others fell behind; Bibliography; Index.

'Why Europe? succeeds in the miracle of combining great breadth and major depth of analysis in a short volume. The test of time for any book lies in whether the questions it raises are intellectually exciting. The questions raised and addressed in Phil Hoffman's latest book will keep everyone awake at night wanting to learn more.' Maristella Botticini, author of The Chosen Few: How Education Shaped Jewish History, 70—1492