Literature review
The paper Perception of Europe throughout the Ages will focus on what was seen as Europe, starting with the ancient Greeks, continuing with the Romans, the Byzantine Empire, throughout the Middle Ages until the Renaissance, where the sense of Europe as a cultural cohesive entity took shape. What was seen as Europe from antiquity through Renaissance? In order to answer this question, I will focus my research on literature in this field. The literature is about the history of Europe, and the Idea of Europe, in order to find out how it was perceived during each era. The different writers will have some different views.
G. Delanty, Formations of European Modernity. A Historical and Political Sociology of Europe (London 2013),
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European Identity is also a social construction, but quite a weak one. Europe is way too diverse to form a true unity or shared identity; its different cultures are simply too little alike.
Until the 18th century Europe is strictly a geographical term.
What Europe does share, however, is its history. Europe has a long, old history. In this history, the peoples, states and centres of power focussed their efforts mostly on each other: especially since the peace of Westphalia they had to hold each other in check.
What many Europeans consider Europes’ accomplishments are actually learned from Islamic culture; in Renaissance the rediscovery of Antiquity was through Arabic translations of ancient texts, and a lot of scientific and technological knowledge was acquired from contact with Islam.
A. Pagden, ‘Europe: Conceptualizing a Continent’, in: A. Pagden (ed.), The Idea of Europe. From Antiquity to the European Union (Cambridge
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Thus, this part is more about how Christianity was a very important aspect of European history than how Europe was defined in the early to mid-Middle Ages. However, this part is still very useful for getting an idea of the importance of Christianity in Europe and the basis this set for unity and division later on. The third part of the submission handles how Europe came to see itself as civilized, a society with a high level of development. In this part there emerges a notion of identification with each other, especially in Western Europe. This indicates a beginning of a European identity, where Europe gets an emotional value, which is very useful for my research.
All texts underline the importance of Christianity in European identity and the idea of Europe, and also make clear that much of Europe’s scientific advancements were a result of contact with Islamic culture. Another important development is the emergence of a cultural affection throughout Europe for each other that really came to fruition late in the Renaissance, at the start of the
In Document A: Textbook Passage #1. The source was created to help educate people how Europe was going through a rough time in the Middle Ages. ”During the early Middle Ages much of Europe passed through a time of turmoil and confusion, of ignorance and lawlessness”. This source has a Eurocentric view of the Middle Ages.
In the time period circa 1450 to circa 1650, empires characterized by centralized rule, heterogeneous populations, and large geographic territories, ruled diverse parts of the world (Lecture 2, January 7). These empires aimed¬¬¬ to expand and further their access to more material and financial resources to further the magnitude of their influence and power. Religion helped constitute a unified ideology for empires to administer their rule over diverse peoples and territories (Lecture 7, January 21). More specifically, religion as a ruling ideology helped create uniformity within vast and diverse territories for empires. Two cases that show evidence of empire use of religion in this manner are the Hapsburg Empire and its relationship to Catholicism
-Why were western Europeans so scared of the Vikings? -What events/circumstances drew western Europeans back into cities? -What role did the Pope play in the middle ages? 1.
During the Islamic Golden Age, science, economic development, and cultural works flourished in the Islamic world. As they spread to civilizations, such as Greece, Rome, and India, Muslims assimilated, advanced, and applied those cultures’ scholarships. They read books and built their knowledge to the point where they could make their own discoveries. They built a strong trading empire by using scientific instruments and the night sky to guide them, and they had access to plenty of resources and goods. These advancements affected numerous fields in their own society and, eventually, in European society.
We’ve all had that moment when we said, “I want to visit Europe,” or, “European culture is different, I would love to see it.” Now imagine yourself roughly 125 years before now. Now, imagine that you are living in Africa. Would you still think about moving to Europe? Would you know what Europe is?
During the early 17th century and late 18th century, major changes were made to the religious belief in the European countries. The rise of the Islamic culture and the Christianity belief dramatically influenced the way non-religious believers were treated. The Capitulary on Saxony played a major role in this change, it is a set of strict policies introduced by Charlemagne that forced the pagans to live under monotheistic ideals. in spite of the fact that both Christianity and Islam have changed how the non-believers were treated, they did so in different approaches.
The second part looks more closely at particular regions in the Early Modern World, and the way ideas from different institutions cause different effects. The areas covered as aforementioned; it could be considered that the way in which Wiesner-Hanks sets out her chapters provides clear outline of the way in which she historically contextualises the global scope. It is the way in which Merry Wiesner-Hanks uses vast geographical and historical context to structuralise her findings, which sets her book apart from others of the same variety. However, it could also be considered that this is one of the few criticisms of the book, as in order to provide a more in depth view of the world beyond Europe in the Early Modern World, Wiesner-Hanks is observed to generalise beliefs across mass geographical regions and the religious views that those within the country might have. Moreover, it is evident that Wiesner-Hanks develops the ideas of Michael Foucault, it terms of the belief that sexuality is paired with power, which ultimately is paired with the knowledge of ‘The will to know’ (book of reference,
Urban II was the pope from 1088 to 1099 when he died. His role in society was important because he set the foundation for the Roman Catholic Church. He influenced many other clerics and noblemen to stick up for Christian faith, so the Catholics could get what they truly deserved out of this world. Urban II’s greatest accomplishment was the crusades. Europe’s economy deeply excelled during these years, which turned this country into an economic role model.
In this manner, the Europeans formed the Crusaders against the Turks and Muslims to retake the places known as holly and spread Christianity and European culture all over the world because “the twin legacies of early medieval missionary activity before the year 1000 and of monastic reform in the eleventh and twelfth centuries provided the conditions for translating ideology into practice.” In this manner, the religious missions focused on influencing on other peoples’ faith to convert them into Christianity. Other controversial thing was about the understating of the diversity, and this understanding did not happen as it was supposed to be because an understanding of the diversity would help states to live longer. And understanding of the diversity of the multiculturalism is to respect to other ethnic and religious groups, so the idea of Europe was against this concept, too. Another controversial thing was the Islamic belief of Jihad.
“ During the Middle ages much of Europe passed through a time of turmoil and confusion, of ignorance and lawlessness. Europe suffered a decline in commerce and manufacturing, in education, in literature and the arts, and in almost all that makes possible a high civilization. Europe became a a region of poverty-stricken farming communities, each virtually isolated from
The concept of cultural events is one of the important aspects of contemporary European life. It's the transition of European identity-making in its basic level, as a result of various forms of cultural friction, integration, transformation and synthesis, These processes have emerged for countless reasons, including the translation of forms of cultural expressions, and intellectual exchange and intellectual competition, technological change, economic development, trade and war, occupation and unification. To understand the cultural meetings is to understand the history and meaning of Europe itself, the nearest human settlement periods to the present day. Its effects reach all the way from the activities of daily living to a wider community
The existence of Christianity enumerates almost 20 centuries and for this period it made a long way in development and expansion. The Christianity was born in Palestine in the 1st century AD and spread to various corners of the world. Kennedy, P. (2011). Christianity : An Introduction. London: I.B.
Euroscepticism – a threat to the future of the project called EU EU’s finality as a federation is not the only possible outcome of the EU’s development – and it is not even a realistic one (Majone 2009: 219–221). A mischievous comment suggests itself in connection with the “ever closer Union”: there is probably nothing that would contradict the finality of European integration more than this concept, which characterises above all a process, a development. It remains true, however, that although the categories of soft and hard Euroscepticism imply one specific form of European integration, Taggart and Szczerbiak’s typology does not employ an explicit, definition of it. Obviously, one might object that the research aim of both authors was to
Like all social identities, there is no fixed European identity. Today we have overcome the monolithic conception of it in favour of a more postmodern definition, understanding it as something fluid or constantly in the process of becoming. Ideas of Europe and about Europe are in close relationship with the historical context and as such they ought to be studied, so that a diachronic understanding can facilitate a synchronic analysis. Paul Valéry’s essay “The Crisis of the Mind” fits well in this framework: the crisis is a crisis of conscience, it’s the awareness that the understanding of the world that once was is no more. Thus, it is an important example of a turning point in the history and evolution of Europe’s identity (or at least of