Abstract
European history is whatever the historian wants it to be. It is a summary of the events and ideas political, religious, military, pacific, serious, romantic, prosaic, near at hand, far away, tragic, comic, significant, meaningless, anything else you would like it to be. There is only one limiting factor. It must take place in or derive from the area we call Europe. But as I am not sure what exactly that area is meant to be, I am pretty well in a haze about the rest.
The totality of national histories? The history of the rise of the western world? Shorthand for the central zone of the capitalist world economy? Continental history with Britain left out? With Russia left out? What is European history?
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Further Reading
Auty, R. and Obolensky, D. (eds), Companion to Russian Studies. Vol. 1: An Introduction to Russian History (Cambridge, 1976);
Barraclough, G., History in a Changing World (Oxford, 1955);
An Introduction to Contemporary History (Harmondsworth, 1967);
Barker, E., Clark, G. and Vaucher, P., The European Inheritance (three vols, Oxford, 1954);
Berl, E., L’Histoire de l’Europe (three vols, Paris, 1946, revised 1973);
Dehio, L., The Precarious Balance: The Politics of Power in Europe, 1494–1945 (London, 1963);
Halecki, O., The Limits and Divisions of European History (London, 1950);
Harding, S. and Philipps, D., (with Fogarty, M.), Contrasting Values in Western Europe (London, 1986);
Hay, D., Europe: the Emergence of an Idea (Edinburgh, 1957);
Krejci, J. and Vitezslov, V., Ethnic and Political Nations in Europe (London, 1981);
Lichtheim, G., Europe in the Twentieth Century (London, 1972);
Mazour, A. G., Modern Russian Historiography (Princeton, 1958);
Raeff, M., Understanding Imperial Russia (trans. Goldhammer, A.) (New York, 1984);
Szamuely, T., The Russian Tradition (edited with an introduction by Conquest, R.) (London, 1974);
Vernadsky, G., Russian Historiography: A History (ed. Pushkarev, S., trans. Lupinin, N.) (Belmont, Mass., 1978);
Wittram, R., Russia and Europe (London, 1973).
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© 1988 Macmillan Publishers Limited
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Taylor, A.J.P., Dukes, P., Wallerstein, I., Johnson, D., Raeff, M., Haraszti, E. (1988). What is European History … ?. In: Gardiner, J. (eds) What is History Today … ?. Palgrave, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-19161-1_13
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-19161-1_13
Publisher Name: Palgrave, London
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