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European Society and Culture Since 1914
History of Europe - WWI, WWII, Cold War: "If it works, it's obsolete." First reported in or about 1950, the saying neatly expressed that period's sense of the headlong speed at which technology was changing. But equally rapid change is the hallmark of many aspects of life since 1914, and nowhere has it been more apparent than in Europe. Photographs from 1914 preserve a period ...
Prehistory
History of Europe - Prehistoric Cultures, Migration, & Conflict: The appearance of anatomically modern humans in Europe—perhaps as early as about 55,000 bce but certainly by about 35,000 bce—was accompanied by major changes in culture and technology. There was a further period of significant change after the last major Pleistocene glaciation (the Pleistocene Epoch occurred from about ...
The Middle Ages
History of Europe - Medieval, Feudalism, Crusades: The period of European history extending from about 500 to 1400-1500 ce is traditionally known as the Middle Ages. The term was first used by 15th-century scholars to designate the period between their own time and the fall of the Western Roman Empire. The period is often considered to have its own internal divisions: either early and late ...
The Renaissance
History of Europe - Renaissance, Art, Culture: Few historians are comfortable with the triumphalist and western Europe-centred image of the Renaissance as the irresistible march of modernity and progress. A sharp break with medieval values and institutions, a new awareness of the individual, an awakened interest in the material world and nature, and a recovery of the cultural heritage of ...
Greeks, Romans, Barbarians
History of Europe - Greeks, Romans, Barbarians: The main treatment of Classical Greek and Roman history is given in the articles Aegean civilizations; ancient Greek civilization; Hellenistic Age; ancient Italic people; and ancient Rome. Only a brief cultural overview is offered here, outlining the influence of Greeks and Romans on European history. Of the Indo-European tribes of European ...
Chronology
History of Europe - Chronology, Migration, Empires: Regardless of the loaded aesthetic, philological, moral, confessional, and philosophical origins of the term Middle Ages, the period it defines is important because it witnessed the emergence of a distinctive European civilization centred in a region that was on the periphery of ancient Mediterranean civilization. Although European ...