The European inter-civilizational constellation

pp. 33-49

in: Gérard Delanty, Formations of European modernity, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2013

Abstract

Since the emergence of a European consciousness from about the sixteenth century the question has been frequently posed as to the meaning of Europe, This was bound to be a contested matter and since then many definitions of Europe have been controversial. For some it is a political project while for others it is a cultural heritage that has been principally realized in different national forms. There is also little agreement on the geographical limits of Europe and how geography relates to the cultural and political dimensions, it has often been noted that Europe is a peninsula of Asia, but where Europe ends and Asia begins cannot be answered by geography alone. The large expanse of land that lies between both was the way through which the peoples of Europe arrived in the great migrations from Asia over thousands of years. Geography unites more than it divides and thus does not offer a ready-made natural barrier than might be the basis of a definition. The narrow isthmus that separates Europe from Africa at the straits of Gibraltar once made possible an islamic civilization that occupied the two sides of the Mediterranean Sea, but in later times was seen as a frontier between "continents' The notion of Europe as a continent is itself a construction that is not based on a geographical landmass that is self-defining.¹