Some thoughts on Roderick Beaton’s Europe: A New History:
Listened to this one on audio, which worked fairly well. It’s not the kind of book that demands a ton of underlining, rather it’s interested in drawing out a historical narrative. One that begins with the Greek city-states (or more accurately with the seed bed that gives rise to them) and ends with the modern geo-political realities of 2026.
What’s the essential aim of the book? What makes it new? I was trying to put finger on the pulse of that question, and I think I would simply say the folloiwng: the author (historian Roderick Beaton) wants to take a fresh look at our present geo-political reality by seeing it through the lens of the development of this idea called Europe.
This of course reaches into the global space (as all lenses do, giving us a way to interpret the world), but the difference is, the thing that makes the authors point of view a fresh outlook on an old idea, how we understand the global space depends on our understanding of the European idea. We cannot get to present without it. Here the author puts forth the premise that the historical narrative has been shaped largely by two distinct and co-relating truisms: the existence of this notion of the super-nation on one hand, and the existence of warring super-powers. Who or what controls the other is the pertinent question when it comes to parsing out the nature of the world’s conflicts.
To this end I found the author’s premise compelling and persuasive. i was most interested in the ealier portions, which lays the foundation for the conversation in the ancient world, and the latter portions, which speak directly to the world that I know today and to our present conflicts. Middle portions, specifically the ones dealing with the world wars, weren’t insignificant (far from it and perhaps the most significant moments in this discussion), they were simply overly familiar territory. The second world war is one of the most studied, written about, disected, documented historical periods in the modern era after all.
As I like to at least attempt to do, boiling this all down to a reduced summary of what is a broader picture remains tough. The most important ideas pertain again to the question of these two governing forces, the super-nation versus the super-power. Much of this discussion, which interestly enough feels to be incessently conjuring up the ghosts of the Roman Empire, traverses the relationship between America and Russia. It was fascinating to put on the fresh lens the author is providing and see in that historical narrative the ways in which the idea of Europe, for as tumoltuous as it has been in the divisions that plague it, has forever existed within the push and pull of these two nations. Even more fascinating to consider how the idea of Europe has played into the rise of these two super-powers.
As the author maps out, the tension lies in this similtaneous tendency to ignore the face of these super-powers and the nature and revelance of their presence as (in perception) antithetical forces. What is often missed is the simple fact that both super-powers actually need (and want) this idea of the EU, the present day response to the divide that has plagued Europe in the past and a symbol of it’s ideolgoical presence, to persist and remain stable? Why? Because for as long as nations are held in check by the EU, the superpowers retain their grip. The flipside to this: the EU, at least a functioning one, is actually the European nations greatest counter to the superpowers. The thing is, the superpowers know why this need not be feared: the states which make up the nations will forever be held in check by the fears that nationalism creates. And there is no better source for stoking these fears than the nationalism of a given superpower, especially in the aftermath of the Cold War. Thus, one can look back through history and see how nearly every move America has made on the global front has been in the express interest of both ensuring the EU remains stable while also ensuring that they stoke those fears (for example, their role and interests in stabilizing a divided Germany against their once disinterest in the EU).
It’s worth stating here that, one of the distinctives of the idea of Europe is that it is an idea built on a different kind of power than that of America and Russia. It is a power of collective influence and investment in policy rather than military. Hence why the superpowers have such a massive grip over it’s functionality. When the threat is always (in modern terms) nuclear, you are always a slave. Meanwhile, America and Russia retain it’s power through might, something that in a global age has turned into an equal investment in geo-politics (it’s always about occupation and control of space and borders in a geo-political reality). It’s often assume that “America” is the great modern idea (or ideal), the grand experiment leading the world into the new era. What is apparent, and this is true for any superpower appealing to an ideal in such a way, is that this is in fact a shadow of a pre-existing imagination called Europe parlayed into a functional Empire (superpower). The one thing that convices people this is something other is how people think of military power as the necessary tool of the ideal. This is the great lie of the modern age, and it’s built on the back of Rome.
There is an element here of buying into this particular lens which requires a reader to endorse some semblance of respect for the idea of Europe to begin with. It’s easy to see the conflict and to anylyze the challenges, but if you don’t think it’s a proper aim one might be a bit retiscent to give it the degree of global and historical importance the author does. This is going to be hardest for those who exist within the language and culture of the superpowers. That alone is worth asking why that retiscence exists and where it arises within the historical narrative. It’s also worth asking why the idea of Europe matters as well to the world as a whole. I think posing both of those questions providesd a challenging but rewarding inroad into breaking out of some of our preconceptions, even those that exist within Europe itself.
The Stories of my Life 