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This chapter focuses on the idea of Europe in relation to the great universalist revolutions of modernity: the Renaissance, the Reformation and the Enlightenment. I also attempt to assess the impact of nationalism and romanticism on the idea of Europe. The idea of Europe is a creation of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, for it was in these centuries that it entered into its own as a secularised version of Christendom which began to decline as a unifying narrative. The Reformation and the seventeenth century wars of religion shattered the unity of Christendom. The Renaissance and the Enlightenment provided the basis for a new secular identity. The idea of Europe henceforth became the cultural model of the West and served as a unifying theme of modernity. But this did not mean that Europe signified a radical break from the Christian world-view. What happened was that the idea of Europe simply became less subservient to the old nexus of Christendom and its alter ego Islam. The new polarity was one of civilisation versus nature: Europe versus the non-European world, which now covered the "New World" and signified the "barbarity" of uncivilised nature. The idea of Europe became increasingly focused on the idea of progress, which became synonymous with European modernity. This was above all an achievement of the Enlightenment.

DOI: 10.1057/9780230379657_5

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