Hey there explorers, Bryan's here, and when we talked about Europe's formal location,
there were quite a bit of people's perceptions thrown in to confuse us, as we try to decide
what Europe actually is. So, the question is, where do all those perceptions come from? How
did they change over time? Now, we've discussed a bit that Europe doesn't seem to be the most
obvious place to have an outsized influence on the world. So, how exactly did it get that
way? All of these are questions we'll look into as we dive into Europe as a functional region.
Functional region. So to be clear, when we've talked about functional regions in previous units,
it has mainly been to highlight current connections between places. For example,
think about the connection between Mexico, the United States, and Canada through their
free trade agreement. While Europe has many many current connections, it is
also largely defined by its past connections. Many of Europe's trading relationships with Africa,
Latin America, and North America, have been as a result of the outsized influence that
Europe has had on the development of those places in the past. As a result,
where Europe functionally begins and ends has changed quite a bit over the last thousand years,
and some places which are still technically Europe, are now very far away from the continent.
An example would be the largest tropical rainforest in Europe which is in, French Guyana.
With that let's look at some of the long-standing connections which have defined functional Europe.
Long-standing connections. Greco-Roman Legacy, the Greek city-states which
through thought, philosophy, and the fact that they wrote all that down,
largely began the connection between the rest of Europe and the Mediterranean world.
The Greek language, or a version of it, along with particular thinking about the method of government
and how citizens should live, pervaded the small peninsula and archipelago of Greece. Until a young
man named Alexander, a student of Aristotle, one of the primary producers of Greek thought,
took it global in his conquest, leaving the mark of Greek culture from Egypt to Northern India.
Next, we have Roma Kaput Mundi or Rome, the capital of the world, words uttered by the
Roman poet Lucan meant to express that at least during his time, the city of Rome, seat of the
Roman Empire, was the absolute center of the world. And if you lived in much of southern,
central, western, and southeastern Europe, along with the east coast of the Mediterranean,
and North Africa from the 1st century BCE through the 4th century CE, you'd have probably agreed.
In fact, much of how we define Europe today is based upon the connections of Roman roads,
many of which are still in use or their routes still followed by modern roads
and trains. Even after the roman empire fell apart, the connections it forged in Europe
can be felt today with languages derived of Latin, French, Spanish, Portuguese,
and Italian, among others, called romance, due to their derivation from the Roman Empire.
Religion spread by the empire, Christianity, and transportation routes still used today,
and many place names. For example, Aquitaine, a southwest province of France,
is basically the same name as what the Romans gave it when they conquered it: Galea Aquitania.
Connection-Southwest Asia. Most of Europe has been heavily associated with the Christian religion;
both Roman Catholic, which is based in Vatican City inside Rome, and Protestant, which began
in Germany. Christianity's origin is within Southwest Asia, a place that is also known as
the middle east, largely located across the eastern coast of the Mediterranean.
In the mid 600 CE, a new religion, namely Islam, took control of much of the eastern
coast, including the city of Jerusalem. Jerusalem is considered a sacred space,
or an area with religious or symbolic importance for three religions; Judaism, Christianity, and
Islam. A series of religious wars declared on this area by Christian Europeans and against Muslim
inhabitants and conquerors, called the crusades, established a long-term connection with the area.
For a time creating a series of Christian crusader states. For a little over 300 years,
much of western and central Europe spent a large amount of its wealth attempting to take
hold and trade with these areas. In addition, the connection between the Byzantine Empire,
based in what is today Turkey and Europe, was strengthened as both areas practicing a form
of Christianity wanted to control as much of the area as possible.
Connection- Africa. From the first landing of the Portuguese on the Madera Islands in 1418,
and the profitability of the wine produced there, drove the rest of Europe to find
more places from which to profit. Where did they turn? Well, among other places,
Africa. Throughout the 1400s and continuing through the late 1700s, most European
possessions were cities or small coastal areas in Africa. But starting in the mid-1800s, England,
France, Belgium, Germany, Italy, Spain, and Portugal all grabbed large amounts of land
in a series of events later called, the scramble for Africa. In fact, by the start of World War 1,
90% of the African continent was occupied or controlled by European power. While a wave
of independence movements began after World War 2, the former strong connections between
Africa and Europe can be seen in continued trade, linguistic, and cultural influences.
Divided region-The cold war. After World War 2,
the world, for a time. was largely defined by a struggle between the United States,
a republic capitalist economy, or a country run by citizen vote and private enterprise, and the
Soviet Union, a socialist command economy, or a country run by a central committee and a system
where production is directed by that authority and their respective allies. For this era of Europe,
its functional region was largely defined by which allegiance each particular country had.
Western Germany, France, Great Britain, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Iceland, Greece,
and Norway were generally recognized as allied with the principles of the United States.
On the other side, East Germany, Romania, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary,
Poland, and multiple formerly independent countries absorbed into the Soviet Union,
such as- Ukraine and Belarus, ally themselves with principles of the Soviet Union.
Until 1989 these countries had limited trade and cultural interaction with each other developing
very differently for the mid to late 20th century. As a result, functional Europe was defined by its
divisions until the fall of the Soviet Union and many of its allies from 1989 to 1992.
Functional region-The European Union. From the end of the second world war
parts of Europe not allied with the Soviet Union had created certain trade networks
and allowed for other countries to sell goods and services with each other. This somewhat informal
network became formalized with the creation of the European Union on, November 1st, 1993, made up of
27 member nations. As of 2020, it dropped from 28 with the withdrawal of the United Kingdom.
The union is an economic and political association of European states which most importantly, for our
purposes, created a huge block of free trade and a common currency, the euro. The connections between
these countries and other countries in Europe, which are allied with the EU, such as Switzerland,
which is the EU's third-largest trading partner, and Belarus, a former Soviet Republic,
have created a trade network valued at 17 trillion dollars as of 2020. Conclusion.
So how do we functionally define Europe? The Greeks and Romans developed and sent out a common
cultural set of ideals which created pathways for trade. Fervent religious connections and a strong
desire for trade drove multiple European kingdoms to at first launch invasions and later established
trade with Southwest Asia, redefining Europe in relation to the Mediterranean.
Throughout the age of expansion and conquest, driven by European powers, the continent of
Africa had been almost completely subsumed by Europe. Establishing trade connections and deep
cultural links which lasted well after African independence movements of the 20th century.
The cold war divided functional Europe into two large spheres of influence,
which allowed for the two halves of Europe to develop differently throughout the mid to late
20th century. And since 1993, Europe has been largely, functionally, defined by the
association of the European Union, which has been a hugely successful economic alliance.
Europe, for being so small, has some pretty big things functionally going on.
In our lesson on "Europe's Perceptual Regions," we'll break this interconnected continent down
in order to drill into the uniqueness of its parts. Until next time, keep exploring!