As the world enters the 21st century, Europe is also entering a new phase of its history. Historians cannot predict the future, but we can point out some important changes in European life. With the collapse of the Communist bloc, the sharp political and economic division between east and west has disappeared. The former Soviet satellite states are moving toward full membership in the European Union, and the process of European unification is gathering momentum. Although there are still drastic differences in living standards between the former Communist countries and those of the west, as well as important differences of language and culture, the era of European national states seems to be drawing to a close. If Europeans can develop functioning institutions of common government, the ‘Old Continent’ could once again play a central role in world affairs. A united Europe would be the world’s largest market, with nearly twice the population of the U.S., and a dominant force in the global economy.
The prospect of European unification holds out great possibilities, but Europe also faces significant problems. Much of the world’s economic and political power seems bound to shift to the heavily populated countries of Asia, China and India; for several decades, the Japanese economy has already outstripped that of any single European country. For the first time in more than a millenium, Europe is absorbing a significant movement of population from the non-European world. This immigration reflects the imbalance between the very poor countries of the ‘Third World’ and the wealth of the West. Assimilating these immigrants is causing major strains throughout the Continent. Immigrants are attracted in part because most of Europe is experiencing a marked aging of its native population. Birth rates in most European countries are no longer high enough to keep populations growing. Among other things, this means that there are not enough young, working people to sustain the expensive welfare state programs adopted in the past half-century. With so much population and industry concentrated in an area one-third the size of the United States, Europe faces severe problems of environmental pollution. Predictions about the possible effects of global warming indicate that it would harm Europe more than the U.S. Europe is closer to the Middle East, Russia, and other unstable parts of the world. Like the U.S., European populations are vulnerable to terrorism. The horrors of the civil war in the former Yugoslavia after 1991 are a reminder that Europeans are capable of turning on each other.
Whatever happens in Europe in the coming years, a knowledge of European history since 1660 will remain essential to understanding the world of tomorrow. The twin revolutions of the 18th-19th centuries—the democratic political revolution of 1789 in France and the Industrial Revolution that began in England—opened new possibilities, not just for Europeans, but for the rest of the planet. Europeans led the way in demonstrating both the positive and negative possibilities of these momentous changes. As we have seen over the course of the semester, Europe’s democratic industrial civilization has had a unique capacity to expand to include peoples from the rest of the world. If we are moving to a global civilization, it is one built on institutions with roots in the European past. But this civilization has also showed a dangerous capacity for destruction. Will the world’s future look more like South Africa’s McCord Hospital with its Katie Makanya wing—a combination of European and non-European peoples sharing the benefits of progress—or like Auschwitz? All of you will share in determining the shape of the future. I hope History 105 will have helped give you a better background for understanding the issues that will shape your world, and your childrens’.
I. A New Age in European History?
A. The prospects of European unification
1. End of the east-west division
2. Decline of nationalism
3. the economic promise of Europe
4. the institutional challenge
B. The challenges facing Europe
1. the rise of Asia
2. the challenge of immigration
3. environmental issues in Europe
4. unstable neighbors and the threat of terrorism
5. the potential for intra-European violence
II. Modern European History in Long-Term Perspective
A. The Impact of the Democratic and Industrial Revolutions
1. the rejection of hierarchical social orders
2. the unleashing of technological possibility
B. Including the world
1. the export of European ideas
2. openness to non-Europeans
C. McCord Hospital or Auschwitz?
Final Exam: Fri.,
Dec. 20, 10:30 am. Bring blue book and
pen.