Bibliographic Information

The common roots of Europe

Bronisław Geremek ; translated by Jan Aleksandrowicz ... [et al.]

Polity Press, 1996

Other Title

Le radici comuni dell'Europa

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Note

Originally published: A. Mondadori, 1991

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Description and Table of Contents

Description

This wide-ranging study explores the emergence of the idea of Europe and its transformation over time. Geremek shows how, in the Middle Ages, the term "Europe" first came to be used to indicate a geographical place. It was only towards the end of this period that the concept of a cultural and historical entity called "Europe" began to take shape, and the term was used more and more widely in historical and philosophical works. He argues that "Europe" was now no longer synonymous with the word "Christianity": it had become something more specific. Geremek claims that, in Western Europe today, the sense of belonging to European civilization is felt less strongly than in the countries of Central Europe. He suggests that it is in everyone's interest to understand Europe in a wider sense, not just as a geographical concept, but as a political and cultural one too. He discusses unity, variety and collective identity in medieval Europe, social and economic structures in East and West, and the continuity and change in European identity in the intervening centuries. The book should be useful to students and researchers in medieval history, European Studies, and to anyone interested in the social and cultural history of Europe.

Table of Contents

  • Western Europe in the middle Ages
  • the exemplum and the spread of culture in the middle ages
  • a bond and a sense of community in medieval Europe
  • Poland and the cultural geography of medieval Europe
  • geography and apocalypse - the concept of Europe according to Jakub of Paradyz
  • the nation-state in 20th-century Europe.

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