Europe: A Cultural History

Description

Fully revised, updated and extended to include the momentous developments of 2020, this fourth edition of Peter Rietbergen's highly acclaimed Europe: A Cultural History is a major and original contribution to the study of Europe. The book examines the structures of culture in this part of Eurasia from the beginnings of human settlement on to the genesis of agricultural society, of greater polities, of urban systems, and the slow transitions that resulted in a (post-)industrial society and the individualistic mass culture of the present. Using both economic and socio-political analytical concepts, the volume outlines cultural continuity and change in Europe through the lenses of literature, the arts, science, technology and music, to show the continent’s ever-changing identities. In a highly readable style, it expertly contextualizes such diverse and wide-ranging topics as Celtic society, the Roman legal system, the oppositions between ‘elite’ and ‘popular’ culture in pre-industrial Europe, Michelangelo’s world-view, the interaction between the Enlightenment and Romanticism, the growth of a society of time and money, the appeal of fascism and other totalitarian ideologies, and the ways the songs of Sting express late twentieth-century thinking. Structured both chronologically and thematically, the text is distinctive in the attention consistently paid to the many ways Europe has been formed through its contacts with non-European cultures, especially those of Asia and the Americas. This edition concludes with an epilogue that discusses the ways Europe’s recent past – including the long-term efforts at further unification, and the various forms of opposition against it – has been both interpreted and misinterpreted; the importance of globalization; and the major challenges facing Europe in the present, amongst which are the consequences of the pandemic of 2020. With a wide selection of illustrations, maps, excerpts from primary sources and even lyrics from contemporary songs to support its arguments, the text remains the definitive cultural history of Europe for both the general reader and students of European history and culture. Cover Half Title Endorsements Title Page Copyright Page Table of Contents List of figures List of maps Preface to the fourth edition Prologue: Europe – a present with a past Europe: on the problems of writing a (cultural) history Europe: a name, a hope – a reality? Europe: the quest for ‘European-ness’ Europe: old Europe, new Europe, old borders, new borders About the authorial condition About choices: the scope and structure of this book About the use(s) of this book About the 2020 edition of this book Acknowledgements PART I: Continuity and change: new ways of surviving 1. Before ‘Europe’: towards an agricultural and sedentary society Beginnings in Africa and the eastern Mediterranean, or the non-European origins of culture in Europe The advent of agriculture, temple and state Invasion, conquest and change: the first Eurasian wave BABYLON, THE SEVENTEETH CENTURY BC: THE LAW CODE OF HAMMURÁPI Beginnings in Europe: after the last Ice Age Invasion, conquest and change: the second Eurasian wave A ‘marginal’ culture? Trade and communication in Phoenicia A ‘marginal’ culture? Democracy and its limitations in Greece A ‘marginal’ culture? Tribal society in Celtic Europe The ‘birth of Europe’ and the Greek ‘world-view’, or how to define one’s own culture The world of Alexander the Great Dossier: the human body 2. Rome and its empire: the effects and limits of cultural integration Between the Alps and the Mediterranean, between the Etruscan and the Greek worlds: the expansion of the early Romans From an informal to a formal empire ROME, THE SECOND CENTURY AD: A LEGAL SYSTEM, A LEGAL SOCIETY – THE ROMAN CONTRIBUTION Roman culture The Roman Empire and the worlds beyond Dossier: the rule of law 3. An empire lost – an empire won? Christianity and the Roman Empire Developments within the Jewish world: the genesis of Christianity From Jews – and Gentiles – to Christians: the role of Jesus of Nazareth and his followers Religions in the Roman Empire A sect of ‘hopeless outlaws’ CARTHAGE, AD 180: ARGUMENTS AGAINST AND FOR THE RELIGION OF THE CHRISTIANS Towards an empire Roman as well as Christian Rome and its neighbours in the fourth and fifth centuries AD: ‘decline and fall’? The division and loss of the political empire – the survival of the cultural empire Empire and language Dossier: charity and/or solidarity? PART II: Continuity and change: new forms of belief 4. Towards one religion for all The Christian world-view: the survival of Classical culture within the context of Christianity and Europe MOUNT SINAI, AD 547: KOSMAS EXPLAIN THE CHRISTIAN COSMOGRAPHY One religion for all: the fusion of Christianity and Europe The rise of a new empire: Frankish statecraft and Christian arguments Culture and cohesion: the role of ideology and education in the shaping of Carolingian Europe, or the ‘First Renaissance’? The impact of monasteries Dossier: Charlemagne: the Father of Europe? 5. Three worlds around the Inner Sea: Orthodox Christendom, Islam and Catholic Christendom Confrontation and contact from the sixth century onwards The world of the patriarch, or: Orthodox Christendom The world of the prophet, or: ‘the House of Islam’ The world of the Pope, or: Roman, Catholic Christendom The Crusades: Catholic Christendom versus Islam and Orthodox Christendom CLERMONT, 26 NOVEMBER 1095: POPE URBAN II CALLS FOR A CRUSADE Dossier: Islam in Europe 6. One world, many traditions: elite culture and popular cultures: cosmopolitan norms and regional variations Europe’s ‘feudal’ polities The Church and the early states Economic and technological change and the early states Stronger states – stronger rulers? The towns and the early states A Christian world or a world of Christian nations? Elite culture and popular cultures: cosmopolitan norms and regional variations LONDON, AD 1378: GEOFFREY CHAUCER DESCRIBES HIS WORLD The importance of the universities Dossier: democracy? Interlude: the worlds of Europe, c.1400–1800 A world of villages A world of towns Two worlds? PART III: Continuity and change: new ways of looking at man and the world 7. A new society: Europe’s changing views of man The survival of Classical culture and the beginnings of Humanism The loss of Byzantium – the gain of Europe: the further development of Humanism in Italy From Humanism to the Renaissance in Italy ROME, AD 1538: MICHELANGELO ANALYSES ITALIAN ART Humanism and the Renaissance: Italy and beyond Dossier: European music 8. A new society: Europe as a wider world Economic and technological change and the definitive formation of the ‘modern’ state From manuscript to typescript Gunpowder and compass THE HAGUE, AD 1625: HUGO GROTIUS EXPOUNDS ‘THE LAW OF NATIONS’ Church and state: the break-up of religious unity Unity and diversity: printing as a cultural revolution Printing, reading and the schools: education for the masses? Europe and its frontiers: nation-feeling and cultural self-definition Dossier: capitalism 9. A new society: Europe and the wider world since the fifteenth century The ‘old’ world and the ‘older’ world The old world and the new The ‘Columbian exchange’ AUGSBURG, MADRID, PARIS, THE EARLY SIXTEENTH CENTURY: OPINIONS ON THE CONQUEST OF AMERICA AND ITS CONSEQUENCES Images of America and mirrors of Europe Further cultural consequences of European expansion Dossier: Europe’s wider world 10. A new society: migration, travel and the diffusion and integration of culture in Europe Migration, travel and culture Non-voluntary travel: the cultural significance of migrations Three types of cultural The business trip: merchants and bankers The diplomatic trip: ambassadors and politicians The educational trip: students, scholars and artists ROME, WINTER 1644–5: JOHN EVELYN VISITS THE ETERNAL CITY The practice of travel To travel or not to travel? Travel as an element in growing cosmopolitanism and cultural integration Dossier: The Church of Rome 11. A new society: the ‘Republic of Letters’ as a virtual and virtuous world against a divided world The Republic of Letters: a quest for harmony The Republic of Letters and the ideal of tolerance: theory and practice FRANCE, CHATEAU MONTAIGNE, NEAR BORDEAUX, AD 1580: MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE ON EUROPE AND ‘THE OTHER’ The Republic of Letters and its enemies: national cultural policies, or the political uses of culture The Republic of Letters, or how to communicate in an invisible institution The Republic of Letters and the ‘inter-traffic of the mind’: three examples Dossier: paradise 12. Anew society: From Humanism to the Enlightenment Humanism and empiricism between ‘ratio’ and ‘revelatio’ From (scientific) empiricism to new visions of man and society LONDON, 1620, PARIS, 1637: FRANCIS BACON AND RENÉ DESCARTES, VIEWS ON THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD From Humanism to Enlightenment: along dawn Enlightenment and Romanticism: poles apart? Dossier: cosmos, nature, man PART IV: Continuity and change: new forms of consumption and communication 13. Europe’s revolutions: freedom and consumption for all? Material culture and conspicuous consumption: consumer change until the end of the eighteenth century Production and reproduction: economic and demographic change until the end of the eighteenth century Social and cultural change: the convergence of elites until the end of the eighteenth century Two revolutions: one political, one economic, both cultural PARIS, 27 AUGUST 1789: THE CULTURAL IMPORTANCE OF THE ‘DÉCLARATION DES DROITS DE L’HOMME ET DU CITOYEN’ Urban, industrial culture: the regulation and consumption of time Dossier: machines 14. Progress and its discontents: nationalism, economic growth and the question of cultural certainties The two revolutions and their aftermath Elements of nationalism: political culture in the nineteenth century New elites, new mechanisms of cultural diffusion, new manifestations of culture BASLE, THE MIDDLE OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY: JACOB BURCKHARDT (1818–97) CRITICIZES CONTEMPORARY CULTURE Money and time, goods and leisure: towards a consumer culture Dossier: War and Peace 15. Europe and the other worlds Europe and its expanding world Europe and Latin America: a severed relationship? North America as a vision of freedom A variety of perceptions: capitalism and consumerism, freedom and slavery, progress and decadence NEW YORK, 1909: HERBERT CROLY (1869–1930) INTERPRETS ‘THE PROMISE OF AMERICAN LIFE’ Europe and America – a cultural symbiosis, or: the growth of the ‘Western World’ To the ‘heart of darkness’: Europe and Africa The ‘old’ world and the ‘older’ world: Europe and Asia Dossier: humankind 16. The ‘decline of the occident’ – the loss of a dream? from the mid-nineteenth to the early twentieth century The sciences and society: positivism … BERLIN, 1877: HEINRICH STEPHAN REJOICES IN THE FIRST GERMAN TELEPHONE SERVICE Europe in hiding, Europe surviving A growing sense of fin de siècle: between optimism and pessimism The sciences and society: relativism … A world at war? Europe at war! Dossier: who am I? 17. From a dream shattered to a dream revived? Continued pessimism The preconditions of another war … Europe: a world after two World Wars A culture of time versus money From ‘familyman’ to ‘salaryman’ – from group identity to individual identity? Towards a youth-oriented middle-class mass culture EUROPE, LATE TWENTIETH CENTURY: THE MESSAGES OF POPULAR MUSIC Science and society Migration and contemporary Europe Dossier: European-ness? Epilogue: Europe – a present with a past, a present with a future? A present with a past? On the necessity of history education New dimensions of identity – towards a unified Europe? New dimensions of identity – towards a complex multiculturalism? New dimensions of identity – towards an anonymous, mediatized mass culture? From the present to the future Index