I think I can agree with you: it is not a book for the general public though it seems it was meant to be such. I have the book, started to read it once, but gave up after having read a small passage. I have no personal links to Wrocław except that my two aunts who were born to a family that lived close to the Polish border with Germany before 1939 (thus not a very long distance from the town formerly known as Breslau) moved to it after 1945. Now that you've mentioned the book, I will try to get to the book once again.
The book by Norman Davies which may interest you is:
Europe East and West, 336pp, Jonathan Cape, £20. Here's what the Guardian says about it ...
Norman Davies is obsessed by a single idea. This is that the history of Europe has been monopolised by the west to the detriment of its eastern component. Himself an expert on Poland, Davies objects to the division drawn since classical times between the civilisation implanted by Rome and the barbarism overflowing from the steppes.
... and about his other books in an article of 11 November 2006:
Much of Davies's academic endeavour has been to bridge the gulf, to show that Europe is a whole and that it makes no sense to examine its parts in isolation. His bestselling Europe: A History(1996) was an admirably comprehensive study that overcame the difficulties of generalisation by peppering the text with separate snapshots and thumbnail sketches.
guardian.co.uk/books/2006/nov/11/featuresreviews.guardianreview5