Reviews
...this volume makes for worthwhile reading, not only because the quality of analysis of the individual contributions is very high. Its focus on Eastern Central Europe makes for a rewarding case study of the question of unity and division in Europe which the book seeks to answer. Moreover, many of the remaining essays fill a gap in the current literature as they deal with countries (such as Romania) and themes (the relationship between Christianity and Eastern Orthodoxy, the role of science in Europe), which are arguably underrepresented in current debates. Journal of Contemporary European Studies, Vol. 18, No. 4 201012 Peter Wagner begins his contribution to this volume on European history by quoting the European Union's unofficial slogan: 'united in diversity' (21). This also forms an apt description of the articles that form this collection. The 13 short chapters are the product of a conference at the Monash University Centre in Prato, Italy, in 2006. The articles are united in their effort to challenge histories of Europe written from its 'core' in Western Europe, and instead provide space for alternative conceptions based on Central, Eastern or Northern European experiences. At the same time, they are diverse in range, depth, and occasionally originality. Some provide case studies, some survey the literature, and others propose altogether new approaches to the study of regions. Marko Pavlyshyn's essay on the emergence of Ukrainian national literature, for example, tells a story of Ukrainian literati deeply linked, personally and stylistically, to European literary circles. While formally concerned with a purely national phenomenon, Pavlyshyn also attempts to transcend national borders. He suggests that any 'national literature', no matter where, is in fact 'European literature' (181); it models itself on styles and traditions established in, and stands in dialogue with, Europe. To Pavlyshyn, Europe here denotes Western Europe, the nineteenth-century Europe of independent states (182). This definition neatly encapsulates the problem of any attempt at 'decentring Europe.' It is a problem that most contributors to Domains and Divisions have to deal with: in the end they all need some initial conception of what Europe entails to make their case. More often than not that benchmark continues to be 'Western' or 'Core' Europe. Bo Strath partially sidesteps the problem of setting Scandinavia up against some European standard. Instead he chronicles the history of the 'Norden' as a European modernity sui generis. While this included dialogue between the 'Norden' and the rest of Europe, Stra th's account does not intend to provide an all-European story. Instead he shines light on one shard in the kaleidoscope that is Europe. M. B. B. Biskupski gets around the issue of defining Europe by describing the attempts of Polish thinkers of the early twentieth century to locate their country in a European narrative. With little doubt about the Europeaness of their enterprise, they define, and then 'decentre' Europe de facto, without reflecting upon it. The history adds richness to our understanding of concepts of Europe developed in the early twentieth century, yet it would have been interesting to see how this extension of the European narrative was viewed outside Poland at the time: as a 'legitimate' expansion of the core-European story, or its appropriation. Differing reactions from France and Germany, for example, would shed even more light on competing narratives of Europe at the time. Rather than focusing on a certain region or country, several of the authors implicitly or explicitly strive to find a new normative basis for European history or histories by offering new fields of analysis that are not tied a priori to geographic definitions of core or peripheral Europe. Irmline Veit-Brause looks at science as a European venture, while Natalie J. Doyle investigates the way in which French and British enlightenment thinkers interpreted the relationship between capitalism and democracy, and how this related to their concepts of society. Michael G. Mu. ller questions whether the very idea of a region as static through time is helpful at all. Different historical questions demand different geographies, the Central Europe of Eastern European Jewry includes different regions from that of the Calvinists (123). One could extend Muller's argument to a fluidity of region across time: the relevant space could shift not only with different questions, but even with respect to the same group or issue, due to the migration of peoples or ideas. In fact, the authors of Divisions and Domains demonstrate the fluidity of the region of '(East) Central Europe' and Europe in general. Between the connection of the Russian Orthodox Church to Heidegger (53) and Byzantium's influence on self-governance in Romania (167-8, 172) the chapters offer rich food for thought about how we conceptualize Europe, who and what we deem European; and they remind us that these considerations always have a real-life and normative aspect to them. This is true now potentially more than ever, as European Union officials and national politicians are trying to decide on the Union's further expansion, and how to convince the public of their positions. Domains and Divisions portrays a continent and its historians as hard at work trying to make sense of its boundaries, its identities, and its trajectories into the future, a continent which is indeed diverse while grappling with its newly-found political unity. , 2012 -- Philipp Nielsen European History Quarterly 42 (2) 2012 Domains and Divisions portrays a continent and its historians as hard at work trying to make sense of its boundaries, its identities, and its trajectories into the future, a continent which is indeed diverse while grappling with its newly-found political unity. -- Philipp Nielsen European History Quarterly 42 (2) 2012
How far you are away from Europe as possible to get a good look? Approximately 15,000 km thought to possibly Johann P. Arnason and Natalie J. Doyle, who both work at the Monash European and EU Centre in Melbourne (Australia). Along with ten other researchers from across Europe, they have written at a session of 2006 based band that so clearly stated in the introduction of Arnason, less to do with the domains and divisions of European history, but rather with unity and division - But that would just not on the title sounded so nice alliterative, and perhaps even corny worked. Ever since you want to say goodbye to those dominant European historical narratives that have either the European nation-states or the EC / EU to the subject, is concerned it is a pleasure with the question of (dis) unity and (in) consistency of the continent . And this is rightly so. There is acknowledgment of the fact that Europe is more than the sum of its countries, and also more than just the Brussels hydrocephalus, and that none are over centuries inexorable progress towards a united Europe. Europe and its history are far more complex than that as long as all too often tried Tags of ancient heritage, the Enlightenment, French Revolution, two world wars and the European Communities. Instead, to set up the view of the geographical, political, cultural, economic and social differences between the Europeans and thus makes the actually disarmingly honest advertising slogan for the EU as its own: Unity in diversity . So somehow only half a unit. Or none at all. The present volume on the participating authors have more to the divisions than for unity of Europe to say. In his introductory contribution Johann P. Arnason designates nations, regions, civilizations and religions those four variables, the equip with a sense of his opinion of European unity and European division (p. 2). In this book, it is the regions that are the focus. Arnason regrets that the other categories have to be treated not as much detail, even more regrettable is that these four were not beyond parameters of unity and division apparently by him and the other authors considered. Be treated by only regions and their relationship to Europe, the study European division remains in the most obvious on the issue of areas of research: geography. It should not be required to cover all aspects of European history in a book, but it would have been desirable if the band a wider range of connections and divisions between people would have opened the borders, not only as a vertical, that is, as geographical borders, but as horizontal, as dividing lines between classes or social groups and within regions and countries would have been understood. In this context, Michael G. Mueller notes in his contribution to the realization value of the study of regions in question. Note form illuminated Muller (East) Central European history and concludes that hardly any of the otherwise than for the region 'typical' interpretations of events and developments throughout the region concerned or was confined to the region. Mueller proposes to use the concept of macro-regions (the idea of continuity in space and time, however left out of). Leave or to work with multiple geographies. The investigated region is not defined in this approach from the outset and along existing boundaries of historical geography, but adapted to the investigation. In his suggestive, entitled Europe - Unity What? provided paper considers Peter Wagner has become fond of us as European unity with the help of political philosophy. Instead of going to Europe in common, he asks about common experiences of Europeans and common interpretations of the same. Wagner denied a European historical leadership that feeds from the adoption of centuries of continuity. He criticized that the current European view of the world but from the consideration of the period of the early modern period to the mid-20th Century is marked, do not support many of the events covered in that time and developments in the theory of European unity, however. Rather, the time of those profound warping was marked, which were caused by the Reformation, French Revolution, the 'culture of individual autonomy' (at Taylor) or the class question. European unity can be found after Wagner's view, therefore, only where those events at all the differences that are related to them, shared experiences of Europeans have spawned. Not the religious schism of the Reformation is then in the center of the investigation, but rather the European catchment entertaining the idea of diversity. The other consistently informative article of the band treat individual aspects and interpret them in terms of their Europeanness. Apart from the contribution of Irmline Veit-Brause, as reported by the Austrian Novara expedition in 1857-59, the article by placing an emphasis on Eastern and Central Europe. M.B.B. Biskupsi describes the Polish ideas of unity and division in Europe, Miroslav Hroch examines the question of whether leaves a continental type of nation-building to make up. In another article examines Arnason Central and Eastern European perspective on Europe. Paul Blokker describes the multiple histories of Romania. Marko Pavlyshyn Investigations in the Ukraine, to what extent is found in the literature as part of an emerging nation-also a moment of European identity. Bo Strath come in his contribution to the region of the 'North' to the conclusion that the regional awareness created in the first place, separate from Europe, and not as an attempt to enrolling Europe. Natalie J. Doyle is finally deals with the differences in the political and economic modernization in the United Kingdom and France. In most papers it gives the impression that in European history are more differences than similarities. But what is the consequence of this, what does this mean for our understanding of Europe? How should the history of the European History meet at all? If there are so few similarities and differences are revealed more and more, Europe will remain by the wayside? If the history of science is a lost object of study because the lines of European history must be drawn so finely that the big picture is falling apart? The Australians have it easier because in any case: a country, a continent, clear boundaries H-Soz-u-Kult 201101 The question to what extent Europe is shaped by common historical experiences and where its faultlines have been drawn due to divergent ones is an important question in order to provide an exacting account of a European history; one which does not unduly compress the experiences into one simplifying narrative but which does not deny the social processes which have tied the region together. The present edited volume, Domains and Divisions of European History, successfully opens up several inroads onto this question through the framework of historical sociology, by investigating some of the long-term historical processes which have defined Europe. The editors distinguish four foci in order to discuss meaningfully aspects of unity and division, to which the essays in this collection relate: civilization, religion, region and nation. The first, civilization, is arguably a strongly value-laden concept, usually but problematically shorthand for the trajectory of western Christendom against a Byzantine and Islamic civilization. It remains an important, if controversial way of tracing the developmental paths of European development. The second, religion, perhaps most strongly signifies the double edged dynamic of unity and division: while Christianity provided a strong integral element, the estrangement of western and Byzantine Churches and the religious wars lastingly divided the continent. The third framework, regions, applies to a number of geographical units and spatial configurations but in this volume serves to explore how and why Eastern Central Europe has been configured as a region on the basis of historical processes. The fourth framework, nations, stands for a destructive but also cohesive force which has arguably been a shaping force for European unity. In the final instance, the editors suggest that all these frameworks can in turn be seen as formative backgrounds to patterns of European modernity. The theme of modernity is explored at greater length especially in the opening and closing essays. Peter Wagner points out that the traditional story of European development from the legacy of Roman empire, via Christianization, towards Enlightenment universalism and Europe's role as the spearhead of progress, has evidently been challenged and arguably replaced in recent years with a more pluralistic perspective which includes its divisive developments. These perspectives on the past have changed European's own understanding of the processes of modernization. The concluding essay by Natalie Doyle looks at French and British paths towards Western European modernity and the groundbreaking new social configurations which they engendered. Two other essays in the first section deal with closely defined themes: Kristina Stockl's essay considers how classical modernization theories have dealt with the subject of cultural difference between Eastern European Orthodoxy and the West and assesses how Orthodox discourse has posited itself in relation to the latter. Irmline Veit-Brause investigates the complex role that science has played in Europe in the nineteenth century; at once a unifying force which travelled the boundaries of the nation state in the spirit of the Republic of Letters, but at the same time also placed increasingly within national institutions. The section entitled 'The centre and its eastern extension' offers perhaps the most satisfying part of the volume as it deals in detail with the longue duree- historical processes which have shaped one region, that of Central Eastern Europe. The overall result is a nuanced and well-balanced assessment of this region. Stefan Troebst's essay introduces the concept of a historical 'mesoregion', or 'Geschichtsregion' (historical region), which has become en vogue in recent years with the overall 'spatial turn' (p. 78) of the humanities. Michael Mu ller's contribution explains that Eastern Central Europe does indeed share a number of common historical experiences, but points also to elements of divergence, such as different modernization processes within the region, different cultures of the East European Jewry in places such as Poland and Lithuania as opposed to the Bohemian and Hungarian Jewry, and finally different experiences of occupation during the Second World War. Miroslav Hroch investigates whether the Central European type of nation formation amounts to a specific, distinct form from the route taken by Western Europe. Hroch finely picks apart the myth of the allegedly 'progressive', civic nationalism of Western Europe and the 'reactionary' nationalism of Eastern Europe based on ethnicity and language by explaining the historical circumstances which have given rise to these different forms of nation formation. The two remaining essays in the section explore the self-image of these countries in relation to Europe as they were rethought by intellectuals, historians and key thinkers of the region. M. Biskupski adumbrates four visions of Poland's place in Europe, while Arnason's contribution evaluates writings by Oskar Halecki from Poland, Istvan Bibo- from Hungary and Jan Patoc!ka from the Czech Republic. The final section assembles essays on some other countries and regions and uncovers their complex, because often partial and interrupted links to the European historical space. Bo Strath's essay looks at the historical trajectory of the Scandinavian countries and explains how external pressures have shaped the self-image of this region sometimes as part of Europe, at other times as clearly distinct. Paul Blokker sketches out the special role of Romania, which in the course of its history was shaped by both Latin Christian and Eastern Orthodox influences, but which both only partially succeeded in imposing their cultural and religious imprint. Marko Pavlyshyn provides a fascinating account of the development of a Ukrainian national 'literature' in the nineteenth century. He argues convincingly that whereas the Ukraine lay outside the European borders, the internationalization of a European culture allowed the Ukrainian elites to participate in a 'Europe-wide, receptive, discursive and creative space' (p. 183). On balance, this volume makes for worthwhile reading, not only because the quality of analysis of the individual contributions is very high. Its focus on Eastern Central Europe makes for a rewarding case study of the question of unity and division in Europe which the book seeks to answer. Moreover, many of the remaining essays fill a gap in the current literature as they deal with countries (such as Romania) and themes (the relationship between Christianity and Eastern Orthodoxy, the role of science in Europe), which are arguably underrepresented in current debates. Journal of Contemporary European Studies, Vol. 18, No. 4 201012 ...this volume makes for worthwhile reading, not only because the quality of analysis of the individual contributions is very high. Its focus on Eastern Central Europe makes for a rewarding case study of the question of unity and division in Europe which the book seeks to answer. Moreover, many of the remaining essays fill a gap in the current literature as they deal with countries (such as Romania) and themes (the relationship between Christianity and Eastern Orthodoxy, the role of science in Europe), which are arguably underrepresented in current debates. Journal of Contemporary European Studies, Vol. 18, No. 4 201012
How far you are away from Europe as possible to get a good look? Approximately 15,000 km thought to possibly Johann P. Arnason and Natalie J. Doyle, who both work at the Monash European and EU Centre in Melbourne (Australia). Along with ten other researchers from across Europe, they have written at a session of 2006 based band that so clearly stated in the introduction of Arnason, less to do with the domains and divisions of European history, but rather with unity and division - But that would just not on the title sounded so nice alliterative, and perhaps even corny worked. Ever since you want to say goodbye to those dominant European historical narratives that have either the European nation-states or the EC / EU to the subject, is concerned it is a pleasure with the question of (dis) unity and (in) consistency of the continent . And this is rightly so. There is acknowledgment of the fact that Europe is more than the sum of its countries, and also more than just the Brussels hydrocephalus, and that none are over centuries inexorable progress towards a united Europe. Europe and its history are far more complex than that as long as all too often tried Tags of ancient heritage, the Enlightenment, French Revolution, two world wars and the European Communities. Instead, to set up the view of the geographical, political, cultural, economic and social differences between the Europeans and thus makes the actually disarmingly honest advertising slogan for the EU as its own: Unity in diversity . So somehow only half a unit. Or none at all. The present volume on the participating authors have more to the divisions than for unity of Europe to say. In his introductory contribution Johann P. Arnason designates nations, regions, civilizations and religions those four variables, the equip with a sense of his opinion of European unity and European division (p. 2). In this book, it is the regions that are the focus. Arnason regrets that the other categories have to be treated not as much detail, even more regrettable is that these four were not beyond parameters of unity and division apparently by him and the other authors considered. Be treated by only regions and their relationship to Europe, the study European division remains in the most obvious on the issue of areas of research: geography. It should not be required to cover all aspects of European history in a book, but it would have been desirable if the band a wider range of connections and divisions between people would have opened the borders, not only as a vertical, that is, as geographical borders, but as horizontal, as dividing lines between classes or social groups and within regions and countries would have been understood. In this context, Michael G. Mueller notes in his contribution to the realization value of the study of regions in question. Note form illuminated Muller (East) Central European history and concludes that hardly any of the otherwise than for the region 'typical' interpretations of events and developments throughout the region concerned or was confined to the region. Mueller proposes to use the concept of macro-regions (the idea of continuity in space and time, however left out of). Leave or to work with multiple geographies. The investigated region is not defined in this approach from the outset and along existing boundaries of historical geography, but adapted to the investigation. In his suggestive, entitled Europe - Unity What? provided paper considers Peter Wagner has become fond of us as European unity with the help of political philosophy. Instead of going to Europe in common, he asks about common experiences of Europeans and common interpretations of the same. Wagner denied a European historical leadership that feeds from the adoption of centuries of continuity. He criticized that the current European view of the world but from the consideration of the period of the early modern period to the mid-20th Century is marked, do not support many of the events covered in that time and developments in the theory of European unity, however. Rather, the time of those profound warping was marked, which were caused by the Reformation, French Revolution, the 'culture of individual autonomy' (at Taylor) or the class question. European unity can be found after Wagner's view, therefore, only where those events at all the differences that are related to them, shared experiences of Europeans have spawned. Not the religious schism of the Reformation is then in the center of the investigation, but rather the European catchment entertaining the idea of diversity. The other consistently informative article of the band treat individual aspects and interpret them in terms of their Europeanness. Apart from the contribution of Irmline Veit-Brause, as reported by the Austrian Novara expedition in 1857-59, the article by placing an emphasis on Eastern and Central Europe. M.B.B. Biskupsi describes the Polish ideas of unity and division in Europe, Miroslav Hroch examines the question of whether leaves a continental type of nation-building to make up. In another article examines Arnason Central and Eastern European perspective on Europe. Paul Blokker describes the multiple histories of Romania. Marko Pavlyshyn Investigations in the Ukraine, to what extent is found in the literature as part of an emerging nation-also a moment of European identity. Bo Strath come in his contribution to the region of the 'North' to the conclusion that the regional awareness created in the first place, separate from Europe, and not as an attempt to enrolling Europe. Natalie J. Doyle is finally deals with the differences in the political and economic modernization in the United Kingdom and France. In most papers it gives the impression that in European history are more differences than similarities. But what is the consequence of this, what does this mean for our understanding of Europe? How should the history of the European History meet at all? If there are so few similarities and differences are revealed more and more, Europe will remain by the wayside? If the history of science is a lost object of study because the lines of European history must be drawn so finely that the big picture is falling apart? The Australians have it easier because in any case: a country, a continent, clear boundaries H-Soz-u-Kult 201101 The question to what extent Europe is shaped by common historical experiences and where its faultlines have been drawn due to divergent ones is an important question in order to provide an exacting account of a European history; one which does not unduly compress the experiences into one simplifying narrative but which does not deny the social processes which have tied the region together. The present edited volume, Domains and Divisions of European History, successfully opens up several inroads onto this question through the framework of historical sociology, by investigating some of the long-term historical processes which have defined Europe. The editors distinguish four foci in order to discuss meaningfully aspects of unity and division, to which the essays in this collection relate: civilization, religion, region and nation. The first, civilization, is arguably a strongly value-laden concept, usually but problematically shorthand for the trajectory of western Christendom against a Byzantine and Islamic civilization. It remains an important, if controversial way of tracing the developmental paths of European development. The second, religion, perhaps most strongly signifies the double edged dynamic of unity and division: while Christianity provided a strong integral element, the estrangement of western and Byzantine Churches and the religious wars lastingly divided the continent. The third framework, regions, applies to a number of geographical units and spatial configurations but in this volume serves to explore how and why Eastern Central Europe has been configured as a region on the basis of historical processes. The fourth framework, nations, stands for a destructive but also cohesive force which has arguably been a shaping force for European unity. In the final instance, the editors suggest that all these frameworks can in turn be seen as formative backgrounds to patterns of European modernity. The theme of modernity is explored at greater length especially in the opening and closing essays. Peter Wagner points out that the traditional story of European development from the legacy of Roman empire, via Christianization, towards Enlightenment universalism and Europe's role as the spearhead of progress, has evidently been challenged and arguably replaced in recent years with a more pluralistic perspective which includes its divisive developments. These perspectives on the past have changed European's own understanding of the processes of modernization. The concluding essay by Natalie Doyle looks at French and British paths towards Western European modernity and the groundbreaking new social configurations which they engendered. Two other essays in the first section deal with closely defined themes: Kristina Stockl's essay considers how classical modernization theories have dealt with the subject of cultural difference between Eastern European Orthodoxy and the West and assesses how Orthodox discourse has posited itself in relation to the latter. Irmline Veit-Brause investigates the complex role that science has played in Europe in the nineteenth century; at once a unifying force which travelled the boundaries of the nation state in the spirit of the Republic of Letters, but at the same time also placed increasingly within national institutions. The section entitled 'The centre and its eastern extension' offers perhaps the most satisfying part of the volume as it deals in detail with the longue duree' historical processes which have shaped one region, that of Central Eastern Europe. The overall result is a nuanced and well-balanced assessment of this region. Stefan Troebst's essay introduces the concept of a historical 'mesoregion', or 'Geschichtsregion' (historical region), which has become en vogue in recent years with the overall 'spatial turn' (p. 78) of the humanities. Michael Mu..ller's contribution explains that Eastern Central Europe does indeed share a number of common historical experiences, but points also to elements of divergence, such as different modernization processes within the region, different cultures of the East European Jewry in places such as Poland and Lithuania as opposed to the Bohemian and Hungarian Jewry, and finally different experiences of occupation during the Second World War. Miroslav Hroch investigates whether the Central European type of nation formation amounts to a specific, distinct form from the route taken by Western Europe. Hroch finely picks apart the myth of the allegedly 'progressive', civic nationalism of Western Europe and the 'reactionary' nationalism of Eastern Europe based on ethnicity and language by explaining the historical circumstances which have given rise to these different forms of nation formation. The two remaining essays in the section explore the self-image of these countries in relation to Europe as they were rethought by intellectuals, historians and key thinkers of the region. M. Biskupski adumbrates four visions of Poland's place in Europe, while Arnason's contribution evaluates writings by Oskar Halecki from Poland, Istvan Bibo' from Hungary and Jan Patoc!ka from the Czech Republic. The final section assembles essays on some other countries and regions and uncovers their complex, because often partial and interrupted links to the European historical space. Bo Strath's essay looks at the historical trajectory of the Scandinavian countries and explains how external pressures have shaped the self-image of this region sometimes as part of Europe, at other times as clearly distinct. Paul Blokker sketches out the special role of Romania, which in the course of its history was shaped by both Latin Christian and Eastern Orthodox influences, but which both only partially succeeded in imposing their cultural and religious imprint. Marko Pavlyshyn provides a fascinating account of the development of a Ukrainian national 'literature' in the nineteenth century. He argues convincingly that whereas the Ukraine lay outside the European borders, the internationalization of a European culture allowed the Ukrainian elites to participate in a 'Europe-wide, receptive, discursive and creative space' (p. 183). On balance, this volume makes for worthwhile reading, not only because the quality of analysis of the individual contributions is very high. Its focus on Eastern Central Europe makes for a rewarding case study of the question of unity and division in Europe which the book seeks to answer. Moreover, many of the remaining essays fill a gap in the current literature as they deal with countries (such as Romania) and themes (the relationship between Christianity and Eastern Orthodoxy, the role of science in Europe), which are arguably underrepresented in current debates. Journal of Contemporary European Studies, Vol. 18, No. 4 201012 ...this volume makes for worthwhile reading, not only because the quality of analysis of the individual contributions is very high. Its focus on Eastern Central Europe makes for a rewarding case study of the question of unity and division in Europe which the book seeks to answer. Moreover, many of the remaining essays fill a gap in the current literature as they deal with countries (such as Romania) and themes (the relationship between Christianity and Eastern Orthodoxy, the role of science in Europe), which are arguably underrepresented in current debates. Journal of Contemporary European Studies, Vol. 18, No. 4 201012
Author Information
Johann P. Arnason is Emeritus Professor of Sociology at La Trobe University, Melbourne, Visiting Professor at the Faculty of Human Studies, Charles University, Prague, and Honorary Research Fellow with the Monash European and EU Centre, Melbourne. His previous books include Social Theory and Japanese Experience: The Dual Civilization (London, 1997) and Civilizations in Dispute: Historical Questions and Theoretical Traditions (Leiden, 2003). Natalie J. Doyle is a senior lecturer in French and European studies at Monash University, Melbourne and Deputy Director of the Monash European and EU Centre.
