In the Early Modern Period the idea of a unified Christian community in Western Europe shattered due to Protestantism and the religious wars that ensued. The idea of self-governed, sovereign, states emerged, as did the idea that ruler were put in place to serve and protect the people under his reign. In this time of discovery and early Enlightenment novel notions like that of a conditional social contract between a ruler and his subjects, the role of the state, individuality and individual freedom came up.

Surveying the history of the idea of Europe from its origins to the present day reveals a profoundly troubling pattern, namely that, all too often, seemingly progressive ideas of Europe have been shaped by Eurocentric, culturally supremacist, and even racist assumptions. Even the championing of rationality, justice, democracy, individual freedom, secularism, and tolerance as what Tzvetan Todorov terms “European values” can contribute to this Eurocentric and Euro-supremacist tendency. The Conclusion reflects upon the challenge posed by such a history, and argues against the longstanding conviction that a cosmopolitan idea of Europe is diametrically opposed to what thinkers such as Denis de Rougemont dismiss as an “anti-European” nationalism. Rather, it is essential to acknowledge that throughout its history the idea of Europe has been for the most part Eurocentric, Euro-supremacist, and Euro-universalist. If the idea of Europe is to warrant any future, it must be shaped by a spirit of self-critique and by an openness to those cultures that have for so long been dismissed as non-European. That, the Conclusion argues, is the key lesson to be learned from the history of the idea of Europe across two and a half millennia.

While the history of the idea of Europe extends back to classical antiquity, the writing of that history only commenced in earnest after the Second World War. The principal histories of the idea of Europe in the immediate postwar years included those by Federico Chabod (1961), Heinz Gollwitzer (1951), Denys Hays (1957), and Carlo Curcio (1958). None of these works, however, sought to cover the entire history of the idea of Europe. It was Denis de Rougemont (1961) who first charted the history of the idea of Europe from its inception to the present. The Introduction considers the principal arguments made in those as well as in more recent histories of the idea of Europe, highlighting the ways in which many of them are grounded in culturally supremacist assumptions. It then considers those values that have come to be considered as distinctly European, including rationality, justice, democracy, individual freedom, secularism, and tolerance, before outlining the book’s overall argument, namely that while it is essential to hold onto those values, it is also necessary to rethink the idea of Europe in a spirit of self-critique and humility, and to break with any simple opposition between the European and the non-European.