L'europe: genese d'une civilisation.

• Author: Rogoff, Martin A.
• Position: Review

L'EUROPE: GENESE D'UNE CIVILISATION. By Lucien Febvre.(*) Paris: Perrin, 1999. 425 pp.

From its inception in the 1950s until the early 1990s, the European Union (EU) was largely the creation of politicians, jurists, and technical experts. Its effective sphere of operations was confined for the most part to economic matters. The Single European Act, which entered into force in 1987 and called for the completion of the economic integration project by 1992, marked the end of what might be termed the first, or economic, phase of European integration. With the entry into force of the Treaty on European Union (Treaty of Maastricht) in 1993, a second, or political, phase of European integration has begun. Due to the sensitive matters involved in this second phase of European integration--such as justice and home affairs, common foreign and security policy, and the creation of a common currency and a European Central Bank--the people of EU Member States are increasingly asking fundamental questions about the direction and character of the European integration project itself as well as seeking greater participation in EU affairs, at both the national and EU levels.(1)

In addition to internal EU developments which have greatly enlarged the scope of EU activities and impacts, recent changes in the global and European political and economic contexts in which the EU operates are posing important challenges for the EU and its Member States and likewise have heightened interest and concern among the general European public for a clearer sense of where the European project is headed as well as for meaningful participation in EU affairs. Some of these challenges include: how to compete with the enormous economic power of the United States in a world moving increasingly toward free trade; how to define and protect European social and cultural values against erosion by pressures coming principally from the United States and from multinational corporations; how to define, protect, and promote European political interests in Europe itself and beyond; how to react to the changed strategic and political situation in Central and Eastern Europe in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet empire and the disintegration of Yugoslavia; and even how to restructure domestic politics in the new, non-bipolar world.(2)

It is important to bear in mind that during the first phase of European integration, from the late 1940s until about 1990, the political, economic, and moral climate in Western Europe was not typical of much of the traditional European experience.(3) The unique set of circumstances prevailing during that period greatly facilitated European integration. Politically and strategically, postwar Europe was divided into two competing political and military blocs. This situation put strong pressure on the Western European states to cooperate in their self-defense, including close political and military cooperation with the United States, and to cooperate in other ways. Economically, Western Europe has experienced an unparalleled and uninterrupted period of growth and prosperity since 1945. More importantly, there have been no economic downturns sufficiently serious to place severe pressure on the democratic governments and the generally pro-European policies of Western European nations. Morally, the tragic results of Europe's second thirty-year war (1914-1945), especially the horrors of the Nazi period, have continued to exercise a strong humanizing and restraining influence on European politics.

Given the unique combination of circumstances which resulted in today's integrated Europe, one might well ask whether the movement toward further integration can be sustained, broadened, or deepened in the face of changes in the political, economic, and moral context that have already occurred, whose long-term effects are not yet known, and of other changes that are inevitable. Will the elimination of the threat from the East lessen Western Europe's need or desire to cooperate in strategic or political matters? What will result from inevitable future economic difficulties or crises, rendered perhaps more serious and unpredictable by increasingly global commercial, capital, and labor markets that subject states and particular groups within states to world-wide economic vicissitudes? Will the humanizing reaction to the events of the 1914-1945 period fade as those events become more and more distant memories to future generations of Europeans?

We must not forget, however, that developments in Europe over the past fifty years also have produced a new context, and have given rise among Europeans to new identifications, perspectives, and expectations, and also to entrenched political, economic, and cultural interests. One may question, however, the intensity and extent of these new conceptions and interests. Are they as visceral, widely-shared, and motivating as the national and statist sentiments and identifications that dominated Europe for 150 years prior to 1950? While not replacing national and statist sentiments and identifications entirely, have European identifications and interests served to create a parallel affinity pole, thereby at least sapping nationalism of its virulence and of its potential for promoting and justifying self-interested and destructive behavior?

As the European Union moves into the twenty-first century, the people of Europe and their leaders face a number of important choices--for example, choices associated with "broadening" and "deepening" the EU, with the structure of EU decision-making, with cooperation in foreign and security policy, with the problems posed by immigration. In responding to these questions in general and to the multitudes of specific, concrete, practical issues they raise on a daily basis, what are the principles that should guide EU decision-makers, national political leaders, and citizens of Member States? What are the possibilities for innovative action in a given area, and what are limitations that EU and Member State decision-makers disregard at their peril? It is critical to sort out the important from the less important and the unimportant and to establish priorities among competing and complementary goals. To respond to all of these concerns, some degree of common understanding and acceptance of the long-term goals, possibilities, and limitations of the European project is essential as a guide to decision-making, planning, and establishing priorities. Moreover, as EU decisions and Member State decisions affecting the EU will increasingly be made on the basis of broad-based, democratic participation, it is important that individual Europeans share this ability to take the long-term, broader view with their leaders. In addition, for the European project to move forward successfully, meaningful discourse and debate concerning critical issues must occur at the European-wide level as well as within each Member State. For this to happen, Europeans must come to identify with the European whole as well as with their particular Member State.

It is in confronting these fundamental issues and attitudes that the European past may have much to teach, by providing a context for the understanding and evaluation of future courses of EU and Member State action, by providing a frame of reference for the formation and articulation of EU policies, and by allowing Europeans to determine or to appreciate the proper polity or polities within which discourse and debate should occur. To perform these functions, however, Europeans need to have an awareness and appreciation of the common European past. The study of European history, as such, must be part of the education of individual Europeans throughout the Union. It is these two themes, the historical past and education for the future, which come together in the recent publication of a series of lectures, entitled Europe: Genese d'une civilisation, delivered by Lucien Febvre at the College de France in 1944-45, in the immediate aftermath of the liberation of Paris.

In his lectures, Febvre considers the conception of Europe as it developed and underwent change in meaning and significance over time. His purpose in addressing these questions is pedagogical--to provide a historical basis for the Europeans of his day, as they think about the reconstruction of Europe after the defeat of the German attempt at continental hegemony by the force of arms, to understand the transpiring events.(4) Febvre stresses that he is dealing with a question of what he calls "historical psychology":(5) "history is what happens in man's head."(6) As for "Europe," Febvre equates it with "European civilization,"(7) which "is not a necessity of place ... or of race."(8) European civilization, like history, is a psychological construct: "[it] is the product of human volition."(9) But "Europe" is not just an idea; it is also an organization. The...