One history book I have found useful for getting the bigger picture of Europe during the 19th and first half of the 20th centuries is David Thomson's "Europe Since Napoleon", first published in the mid-1950s. It is divided into ten major sections which are in turn subdivided and starts with the major upheaval caused in European history by Napoleon and his conquests and ultimate failure.
Thomson then moves on to a general section about change and demography, and then returns to upheavals in a section called "The Age of Revolutions 1815-50" which covers various major changes in Conservatism, Liberalism, and economics, plus the national revolutions around 1848.
Then come the growth of Russia and Central Europe, Democracy and Socialism, Imperial Rivalries, the First World War, the Great Depression, the Second World War and its aftermath.
It will inevitably be Anglocentric to an extent, as it was written by a Cambridge scholar who also taught in the United States. But it is a good way of learning about the one and a half centuries before our present day. For post-1950s developments you will of course have to consult other books.
Thomson then moves on to a general section about change and demography, and then returns to upheavals in a section called "The Age of Revolutions 1815-50" which covers various major changes in Conservatism, Liberalism, and economics, plus the national revolutions around 1848.
Then come the growth of Russia and Central Europe, Democracy and Socialism, Imperial Rivalries, the First World War, the Great Depression, the Second World War and its aftermath.
It will inevitably be Anglocentric to an extent, as it was written by a Cambridge scholar who also taught in the United States. But it is a good way of learning about the one and a half centuries before our present day. For post-1950s developments you will of course have to consult other books.