Description: This book recounts the historical development of Europe from the Greek city states through to the 1992 Maastricht Treaty on European integration. Among other things the book explains he rise of Christianity and highlights the significance of the fall of the western half of the Roman Empire and the survival of the eastern half for another 1000 years. It examines the attempts by the Papacy and the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation to recreate European unity and how divisions within and between these two institutions led to the fragmentation of Europe into states. The book goes on to relate how the voyages of discovery led to western European domination of the world, contrasts royal absolutism on the continent with the development of British political liberty, traces the effects of the French Revolution on nationalism and the industrial revolution on the European balance of power leading up to the two world wars. The last chapter concentrates on the integration process since 1945 and the collapse of the Soviet Empire.

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