Writing a book about three major western European rivers and their effects on the history, geography, culture, and identity of the continent is an ambitious task, and Robert Winder does a brilliant job of making it interesting as well as informative. The Rhine, Rhone, and Ticino (which merges with and becomes the Po) all have their origin close to each other in the Swiss Alps but take off in different directions; the Rhine turns north and flows through Germany, reaching the North Sea across the border in the Netherlands, the Rhone travels south through France before emptying into the Mediterranean, while the Ticino/Po goes eastward through northern Italy until it reaches the Adriatic just south of Venice. As the rivers diverge, they flow through increasingly different landscapes and encounter different climates, each river increasingly has its own personality, from the dynamic Rhine to the sparkling Rhone to the indolent Po. Since humans have always gravitated toward water, each river also has its own characteristic population, history, and culture. The book addresses all these aspects, sometimes treating all three rivers in a single chapter and sometimes giving each river its own chapter to explore some of these issues in more depth. The rivers have inspired art, music, literature, and spirituality since humans first settled, and later visited, the land around them. The book also describes the agriculture and industry characteristic of the three rivers, as well as their use for transportation. And since rivers form natural borders, they can be the locations of border disputes, and the Rhine in particular has been the focus of many border clashes between France and Germany (and their predecessor states). This contentious aspect of the history of the rivers is also discussed in the book, and it was a little surprising to see how much of history has been devoted to trying to take control of local rivers. Overall, the book is packed with interesting information and stories about the three rivers and the countries they flow through. It also has quite a few photos of the rivers (although, given how scenic they are, I'd have loved to see more). It's a fairly long book but is a very easy read, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. My only quibble is with the subtitle. I think it'd be more accurate if it was "The extraordinary waterways that made Western Europe" (instead of just Europe) because, honestly, you'd expect a book about Europe's major rivers to include the Danube. However, as the author explains early on, the Danube (apart from having its source at some distance from the other three) is mostly a central and eastern European river. Which makes sense for this book, but it's leaving me with the hope of a sequel. With many thanks to NetGalley and Elliott and Thompson for a prepublication ebook