History of Europe
history of European peoples and cultures from prehistoric times to the present. Europe is a most ambiguous term than most geographic expressions.
Its etymology is doubtfull, as is the physical extent of the area it designates. Its western frontiers seem clear defined by its coastline, yet the position of the British Isles remains equivocal. To outsiders, they seem clearly some part of Europe. To many British and few Irish people, however, “Europe” means essentially continental Europe. To the south, Europe ends on the northern shores of the Mediterranean Sea. Yet, to the Roman Empire, this was mare nostrum (“our sea”), an inland sea rather than a frontier. Even now, some question whether Malta or Cyprus, is a European island. The greatest uncertainty lies to the east, where natural frontiers are notoriously elusive. If the Ural Mountains mark the eastern boundary of Europe, where does it lie to the south of them? Can Astrakhan, for instance, be regarded as European? The questions have more than merely geographic significance.
These questions have acquired new importance as Europe has come to be
more than a geographic expression. After World
War II, much was heard of “the European idea.”
Essentially, this meant the idea of European unity, at first confined to
western Europe but by the beginning of the 1990s seeming able at length to
embrace central and eastern Europe as well.
Unity in
Europe is an ancient ideal. In a sense it was implicitly prefigured by the
Roman Empire. In the Middle Ages, it was imperfectly embodied first by Charlemagne’s
empire and then by the Holy Roman Empire and the Roman Catholic
church. Later, a number of political theorists proposed plan for European
union, and both Napoleon Bonaparte and Adolf Hitler tried
to unite Europe by conquest.
It was not until after World War II, however, that
European statesmen began to seek ways of uniting Europe peacefully on a basis
of equality instead of domination by one or more great powers. Their motive was
fourfold: to prevent further wars in Europe, in particular by reconciling France and Germany and
helping to deter aggression by others; to eschew the protectionism and
“beggar-my-neighbour” policies that had been practiced between the wars; to
match the political and economic influence of the world’s new superpowers, but
on a civilian basis; and to begin to civilize international relations by
introducing common rules and institutions that would identify and promote the
shared interests of Europe rather than the national interests of its constituent states.
