Europe Reference library
The Oxford Dictionary of the Renaissance
... . The classical term ‘Europe’ was in the Middle Ages displaced by ‘Christendom’, and when ‘Europe’ was revived by the humanists in the late fifteenth century, it was a geographical term used to distinguish the land mass of Europe from those of Asia , Africa , and America rather than, as it became in the nineteenth century, a political and cultural term. The idea of a united Christendom was one of the ideals of the Holy Roman Empire . D. de Rougemont , The Idea of Europe (1966); Peter Burke , ‘Did Europe Exist before 1700?’, in History of European...
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Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase & Fable (19 ed.)
... European City of Culture A city in a member state designated by the European Union for a period of one calendar year, during which it showcases its cultural life and development. Designed to bring European peoples closer together and highlight Europe’s cultural richness and diversity, the event was launched in 1985 on the initiative of the late Greek Minister of Culture, Melina Mercouri , who felt that culture was not given the same prominence as politics and economics within the European Community. Athens was the first European City of Culture, in ...
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The New Oxford Companion to Literature in French
... . Literary periodical created in 1923 by a group round Romain Rolland . Its editors have included Guéhenno and Cassou...
Europe (2) Reference library
The Oxford Companion to Chaucer
... (2) , One of the three continents of medieval cartography (HF 1339, II.161; see Maps 1,...
Europe Reference library
R. Bruce Hitchner and Alexander Kazhdan
The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium
... (Εὑρ&ώπη). The Byz. retained the ancient concept of three continents—Europe, Libya (Africa), and Asia. Since only narrow straits divided Europe from Libya, Theophanes (Theoph. 95.1–2, 426.3–4) considered Spain “the first country of Europe from the West Ocean.” The border between Europe and Asia was more difficult to define. The Bosporos-Hellespont was a natural dividing line; to the north, the Tanais (Don) River was considered a border— Laonikos Chalkokondyles (Chalk. 1:123.6–8) assumed that “the land beyond the Tanais” was larger and wider than Europe....
Europe Reference library
John GILLIS
Berkshire Encyclopedia of World History (2 ed.)
...between western European nations and the regions to the east and south became accentuated. Autocratic Russia now became Europe’s “window on the East.” During the New Imperialism of the later nineteenth century, Europeans’ consciousness of their European-ness was again reinforced by encounters with non-European peoples, affirming the observation that “Europe did not simply expand overseas, it made itself through expansion” ( Asad 2002 , 220 ). European anthropology and ethnology supposedly gave scientific credence to Europeans’ heightened sense of...
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A Dictionary of Human Geography
... The world’s second-smallest but third most populous continent, with around 10 per cent of global population. Europe comprises some 50 nation states and principalities. Just over half are members of the European Union (EU) and most are representative democracies in a political sense. Economically, the countries of northern and western Europe remain the wealthiest per capita (Britain, France, Germany, Holland, Switzerland, Finland, Norway, Denmark, and Sweden). Except for Italy, Spain, Portugal, and the Czech Republic, those countries to the south and east...
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A Dictionary of World History (3 ed.)
...( see industrial revolution ). The modern history of Europe is largely that of its constituent nations. In the 20th century European history has been dominated by World War I and World War II . Since the end of World War II the European Community and its successor, the European Union , have brought an altogether more hopeful era to the peoples of Europe...
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Charles Jones
A Concise Oxford Dictionary of Politics and International Relations (4 ed.)
... Europe remains powerful yet ill‐defined. Some of its members—Russia and Turkey—extend beyond its accepted geographical limits. Such unity as it possessed by the early twentieth century rested equivocally upon a shared though divisive Christianity and a rationalist philosophical and scientific tradition (both owing much to the Arab world), a common history of sustained internecine warfare, a fiction of racial homogeneity, and a claim to original responsibility for industrialization and modernity. This tense unity was first effectively projected beyond its...
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The Islamic World: Past and Present
...Europe Islam is currently one of the largest and fastest growing religions in Europe. Over 18 million Muslims live on the continent. Western Europe and southeastern Europe each contain about 9 million Muslims. Smaller Islamic communities have formed in many other European nations, such as Poland and Finland. France has the largest Muslim population in Europe. The 5 million Muslims in that country outnumber both Protestants and Jews. Conquest and Reconquest. Islam has maintained a presence in Europe for over 1,300 years. In the 700s, Muslim armies conquered...
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World Encyclopedia
...world affairs. After World War 2, the countries of Europe divided into two ideological blocs: Eastern Europe, dominated by the Soviet Union; and Western Europe, closely aligned with the USA ( see Cold War ) The North Atlantic Treaty Organization ( NATO ) was established to act as a deterrent to the spread of communism ; the Warsaw Pact was its e European counterpart. Several economic organizations, in particular the European Community ( EC ), worked towards closer intra-national cooperation. The collapse of Soviet communism in 1991 added to the...
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The Oxford Dictionary of the Classical World
... The name originally stood for central Greece. It was soon extended to the whole Greek mainland and by 500 bc to the entire land mass behind it. The boundary between the European continent and Asia was usually fixed at the river Don. Homer 's range of information hardly extended north of Greece or west of Sicily. The Mediterranean seaboard of Europe was chiefly opened up by the Greeks between c. 750 and c. 550 ( see colonization, greek ). The Atlantic coasts and ‘Tin Islands’ were discovered by the Phoenicians; Pytheas circumnavigated Britain and...
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The Concise Oxford Companion to English Literature (4 ed.)
... : A Prophecy A poem by William Blake , printed 1794 at Lambeth, in which he portrays the oppression of Albion during the 1,800‐year sleep of Enitharmon, the female principle, and the approach of the French Revolution, symbolized by her son, the terrible Orc, the spirit of...
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Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Place Names (6 ed.)
...Europe , The second smallest continent is said to be named after Europa. According to Greek mythology, she was the daughter of Agenor, King of Phoenicia, who was carried off to Crete by Zeus, the supreme ruler of the Greek gods. Geographically, it was first mentioned in a Greek poem in the 8th century bc . It applied only to the ‘mainland’, that is, the vast territory to the north of ancient Greek horizons. Around the turn of the first millennium ad , the name Europe was not often used. Indeed, it was rarely used until the late 17th century ; more common...
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The Oxford Companion to English Literature (7 ed.)
... : A Prophecy A poem by William Blake , printed 1794 at Lambeth, in which he portrays the oppression of Albion during the 1,800‐year sleep of Enitharmon, the female principle, and the approach of the French Revolution, symbolized by her son, the terrible Orc, the spirit of revolt....
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Eric Herbert Warmington and Simon Hornblower
The Oxford Classical Dictionary (4 ed.)
... The name Εὐρώπη originally stood for central Greece ( Hymn. Hom. Ap. 251 , 291 , with N. Richardson's comm., 2010). It was soon extended to the whole Greek mainland, and by 500 bc to the entire land mass behind it. The boundary between the European continent and Asia was usually fixed at the river Don. Homer vaguely knew dark regions of the west and north, but his range of information hardly extended north of Greece or west of Sicily. The Mediterranean seaboard of Europe was chiefly opened up by the Greeks between 800 and 500 bc ( see ...
Europe Reference library
The Oxford Companion to Classical Literature (3 ed.)
... The continent of Europe was said to have been named from the mythical Europa , although Herodotus found this implausible since she was from Phoenicia and never entered mainland Europe. The name as used by the ancients does not correspond with the modern continent. Not mentioned by Homer, the name is first found in the Homeric Hymn to Apollo (seventh century bc ) where it refers to an area in north Greece distinct from the Peloponnese and the Greek islands; by 500 bc it was extended to the land mass behind. Pindar, Herodotus, and his contemporaries...
Europe Reference library
Encyclopedia of Climate and Weather (2 ed.)
...cover much of northern Asia. Northwest Europe has a humid temperate climate, but the southern rim of the continent has a Mediterranean climate characterized by mild winters and hot dry summers. The coldest European winters are found in northeastern Scandinavia and northern Russia; the warmest are in the Mediterranean peninsulas. July mean temperatures are above 10°C throughout Europe, except in the extreme north, and reach 20°C to 26°C over large parts of southern Europe. Atmospheric Circulation and Rainfall. European weather and climate develops downstream...
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Ton Hoenselaars
The Oxford Companion to Shakespeare (2 ed.)
...to appoint the man from Stratford as European Poet Laureate in 2016 . Since the 1980s, interest in Shakespeare as a ‘European’ playwright has grown steadily, with a special focus on his afterlives. Momentous political events—including the demise of Communism ( 1989 ), and the foundation of the European Union ( 1993 )—have challenged traditional perceptions of national culture, prompted original research into the reception of Shakespeare in a federal Europe, and encouraged reflection on a possible sense of pan-European identity, past and present, with...
Europe Reference library
Encyclopedia of African American History, 1619–1895: From the Colonial Period to the Age of Frederick Douglass
... European visitors to the United States were keenly interested in slavery, African Americans, and race relations in America. Few blacks lived in Europe, as slavery had been abolished there, and almost no black Americans visited the Continent. European visitors held a spectrum of opinions about Americans and their customs: some praised qualities like ingenuity and democracy, while others criticized a lack of good manners. Europeans, though, were almost universal in their condemnation of slavery, even as they held a variety of opinions about African...
