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The second smallest continent after Australia/Oceania, but the third most populous afterAsia andAfrica, Europe nonetheless became the crucible of contemporary civilization in the last millennium. Empires, kingdoms, and states on this continent developed progressively and rapidly in knowledge, politics, society, and technology, which bolstered their maritime powers and allowed them to project themselves worldwide, withFrance,Spain and theUnited Kingdom becoming particularly prominent among the European powers. There is little in the world that has not come into contact with Europe somehow and been affected by its legacies and policies. They are primarily responsible for the settlements of North andSouth America, and their colonial outposts in these continents (which they nicknamed "the New World") have gone on to become great nations in their own right and major population centers. In addition, their colonial conquests played a major role in the development and modernization of Africa, Asia andOceania to the point that European languages have been exported around the world and are now spoken by far more non-Europeans than Europeans themselves, although their colonization of Africa, Asia, as well as the Americas have also created many problems in those continents towards the Indigenous peoples and cultures who were living there prior to contact. Many popular foods eaten worldwide, such as hot dogs, pizza and spaghetti, also originated in Europe and were brought to other continents by European immigrants. Ancient European mythology is a popular theme for films, literature, TV shows, and video games, particularly Greco-Roman and Norse mythology. Likewise, the names of the other continents and most landmasses and nations were coined by Europeans in ancient, medieval, and modern times. It is almost impossible to understand our world without a good understanding of European history and society. The very word "Eurocentric", coined to signify and escape its overwhelming influence, pays homage to and reinforces its central role in modern consciousness.
Europe is considered the progenitor ofWestern civilization, burdened with a self-proclaimed civilizing mission that often undergirded its conquests and settlements of other lands and peoples (and didn't tend to impress nations and peoples who had been 'civilised' by then contemporary measures before northern Europe in particular had developed architecture beyond stone circles and huts). While Europe is the source of many cultural and political achievements, historical monuments, and inventions, it also has a dark and violent history full of conflict - because, to be blunt, European nations fight like cats in a sack, and from the Age of Exploration onwards (or even the Hellenistic Era, if you go back to Alexander the Great's successors) have had the capacity to make their internecine squabblingeveryone's problem. While the general perception of the European Union is of a miniature UN that's marginally more decisive and mostly focuses on dull regulatory minutiae, and there is some truth to that, it is also easy to forget that like the UN (and it's ill-fated predecessor, the League of Nations), it was primarily designed to give Europeans a means of resolving disputes without killing each other. Given that no EU member states have declared war on each other since it's founding, it's doing something - quite possibly because as the 2020s have shown, as an economic bloc it has the heft to stand up to the USA in a trade conflict, while also pumping money into Ukraine to support it against Russia. And as both Poland and Hungary have found, it is more than capable of putting the financial squeeze on rogue member states - and as the UK has found post-Brexit, even powerful economies are usually negotiating from a position of weakness. The continent boasts an astonishing legacy of cultural, intellectual, and social advancement, being the center ofThe Renaissance,The Enlightenment, the Industrial Revolution, and the scientific revolution, alongside our contemporaryPolitical Ideologies, but as noted, was also a battlefield for a large portion of its history, and was the primary terrain ofWorld War I andWorld War II, the two most destructive wars so far in history.
Europe's worldwide influence declined due to the tremendous loss of life and damage taken to its infrastructure, military power, and resources from the World Wars, as well as the major European powers losing control of their colonies worldwide.North American global influence surged, and North America soon replaced Europe in much of their role worldwide, with theUnited States coming into prominence as one of the three Superpowers left after the World Wars, the others being the United Kingdom andSoviet Union. Europe would find peace for some time after World War II, though would spend a lot of that peacesplit into two halves by the United States and the Soviet Union, with the US-allied countries formingNATO and the Soviet Union-allied countries forming theWarsaw Pact. The United Kingdom soon lost its Superpower status after the Suez Crisis of 1956. The Soviet Union would later collapse inThe '90s, dissolving the Warsaw Pact, reuniting the two halves of the continent, and leaving the United States as the only remaining Superpower in the present. The history of Europe is equal parts glorious and equal parts tragic. Fittingly enough, the name "Europe" is derived from the name of themythicalrape victim Europa.
Since the designation of lands as continents is arbitrary, the territorial extent of Europe is largely a cultural, economic, and political designation rather than a geographical one. Europe's largest and most populated country is Russia, which is a transcontinental state that extends from Eastern Europe all the way across North Asia to the Pacific Coast, where it shares land and sea borders with the United States, China, North Korea, and Japan. Consequently, there is often a subdivision of Russia itself, with 'European Russia' being demarcated with the Ural Mountains as an eastern border.
Turkey is another transcontinental state that culturally and historically has played a major role in Europe and Asia, especially in Southern Europe and Western Asia, but for cultural, nationalistic, and religious reasons is generally not considered European - how European it is considered, or considers itself, largely depends on the year. Other states are usually considered European for cultural rather than geographical reasons (Georgia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Cyprus, and Armenia), despite being, in the case of the latter two, geographically entirely Asian.
Furthermore, there is no true continental divide between Europe and Asia (hence the "Eurasian tectonic plate"), and some even regard Europe as an Asian subcontinent with delusions of grandeur. What defines Europe is the common interconnected, intricate history where various empires and kingdoms were at various times colonized, conquered, occupied, and settled by one or another, a common experience that they then exported to the rest of the planet.
So how one defines Europe is likely to speak one's own political and social views — for example,The Iron Man includes the line "all the countries of Europe can fit easily into Australia," which may confuse many modern readers unless they know that, to Ted Hughes, "Europe" stopped at theIron Curtain — as much as it is a cold geographical assessment. Even areas whose "Europeanness" are unambiguous to non-Europeans, such as theBritish Isles, the Balkans, Russia west of the Urals, etc — are regarded by its own residents as being apart or different from the continent. Europe is also sometimes merged withAsia asEurasia, orAfrica and Asia asAfro-Eurasia, which makes geographical sense, but is not quite acceptable politically, especially since it mainly concernsRussia for the former.
For the list of tropes related to Europe and Europeans, see theEurope Index.
If you're looking for the Swedish rock band, clickhere or in the "Music" link up there.
