Unity and divisions in early modern European history

the emergence of a Westernized Europe

pp. 130-146

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

Abstract

The very notion of European history suggests that there is a pattern that constitutes the basic unity of its history. Indeed, the very notion of a historical process seems to presuppose a structural pattern. Yet, a closer look at the historical experience reveals a more complicated situation, instead of unity one finds divisions that undermine claims to significant unity. Much of the narrative in this book has stressed internal civilizational differences and has invited scepticism about proclamations of unity, at least without showing how they came into existence. This is not to deny the existence or possibility of a unity, but urges caution in assuming its existence as a self-defining reality or a teleological ideal that should be reached when divisions are overcome. In the traditional Grand Narratives the assumption was that out of the divisions in history a greater unity would be possible due to an underlying common civilization that provided it with its basic orientations. Yet some notion of unity is needed, if only to make sense of diversity. The argument in this book is that European civilization is to be understood as a constellation of civilizations whose interaction produced the basic matrix of modern Europe, which as a consequence is composed of multiple forms that were later solidified with the emergence of modernity and its different routes.