Fifty Years of Europe: An Album

by Jan Morris

The author compares her experiences traveling in Europe today to her past experiences to explore the changes that have taken place in the Old World over the past fifty years

Genres: Travel, Nonfiction, History

366 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1997

About the author

Jan Morris was a British historian, author and travel writer. Morris was educated at Lancing College, West Sussex, and Christ Church, Oxford, but is Welsh by heritage and adoption. Before 1970 Morris published under her assigned birth name, "James ", and is known particularly for the Pax Britannica trilogy, a history of the British Empire, and for portraits of cities, notably Oxford, Venice, Trieste, Hong Kong, and New York City, and also wrote about Wales, Spanish history, and culture.

In 1949 Jan Morris married Elizabeth Tuckniss, the daughter of a tea planter. Morris and Tuckniss had five children together, including the poet and musician Twm Morys. One of their children died in infancy. As Morris documented in her memoir Conundrum, she began taking oestrogens to feminise her body in 1964. In 1972, she had sex reassignment surgery in Morocco. Sex reassignment surgeon Georges Burou did the surgery, since doctors in Britain refused to allow the procedure unless Morris and Tuckniss divorced, something Morris was not prepared to do at the time. They divorced later, but remained together and later got a civil union. On May, 14th, 2008, Morris and Tuckniss remarried each other. Morris lived mostly in Wales, where her parents were from.

Reviews

[Will Ansbacher · Rating 2 out of 5]

Disappointing and not what I expected. Jan Morris is the master of the travel vignette but these pieces were really too short, most just a paragraph in length. I soon became frustrated with jumping from one topic to the next even if they were related. And I probably should have skipped the entire first chapter which had a religious theme. By that time however I was past the "50-page rule". Perhaps I will return and dip into it again some day.

[Alan C · Rating 3 out of 5]

not the fluent prose I have come to expect of Jan Morris, a very staccato style of writing. Essentially a collection of snapshots from her travels through Europe. Although there are at times common threads which make connections between the different 'chapters' (and I use that term loosely!), I found this quite disjointed and difficult to read.

[Martha · Rating 2 out of 5]

disappointed 2x: little info of value to traveller; subtitle "An Album" suggests photos of which there are none

[Carmen · Rating 1 out of 5]

stopped reading; too heavy stuff