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Western Europe includes Italica, Gallia, Hispania, Helvetia, Germania, Britannia, Caledonia, Hibernia and the Hiperborians or modern day Scandinavia.
Other areas, once part of Western Europe, are now alien territories, I'm thinking of Tingitania, the ancient jewel of the crown of western Europe even if not in Europe.
By that criteria, then Europe would correspond to what today is roughly the extreme western tip, or European, part of Turkey.
No, Europe as we know it today is equally alien to the ancient Roman Empire and it starts with an alien as the ancient Romans would have recognized him, Charlemagne (and whose precursor was Attila).
Nevertheless, kudos for mentioning Tingitania and the other provinces of the Roman Empire for centuries an easy sail just across that former superhighway known as the Mediterranean but long since busted and no relief in sight.
Western Europe by itself seems to not have that much in common. Not everyone agrees on where to draw the line between Eastern and Western or Western and central. It seems like lumping Spain, Germany and Ireland together doesn't really work on a lot of shared features. The cultures are so different, the food, climate, lifestyle etc. are varied and the languages are in totally different families.
It seems that part of the definition of Western Europe comes from the Cold War, with the capitalist team in opposition to the Eastern bloc. This definition, after the Cold War seems less meaningful now.
The other definition I hear of Eastern vs. Western Europe is that of Eastern and Western Christianity, which is a deeper and more historical split, with the Western branch deriving from the Latin, Roman split and the Eastern, the Greek split, of the Empire and its associated religion. However, there is more to Europe and ways to divide it culturally than just religion (plus, many Europeans are not that religious today in the western part).
Do you think Western Europe is a useful term or way of dividing culture? Or is it just a more geographical term of convenience for referring to different parts of the continent only?
True but I think that we have more in common with them than the Eastern European countries.
Location: Near Tours, France about 47°10'N 0°25'E
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Originally Posted by bale002
So by this definition, the history of western Europe begins in 1917.
the concept if 'western Europe' as it has been understood in much of the 20th century had been given a geopolitical meaning even more recently, after WW2. Before that it was not such a great deal to speak about 'western Europe' and was quite unclear to many people. Anyway, even during the cold war western Europe was not a cultural region, but just a geo-economical political concept.
In Other periods and times the term 'western Europe' has been used for diverse various ways, but still wasn't a cultural group, but rather temporary political religious grouping, which could be politically relevant in those distant times but not 1000 years later, and certainly not in a cultural way.
For exemple, it is today a tendence to picture 'charlemagne' as the 'father of Europe'. There is nothing less true than this. He just happended to have owned a big empire on the western side of Europe (with many places in 'modern' western Europe not in it.)
This empire 'unifying' a part of western half of Europe did not lasted longer than Charlemagne's life and did not created a unique culture (too short time and too diverse cultures within the empire). Actually Charlemagne never wanted to create a unique western European culture, or nation, his short empire was just about a small class of Frankish nobility owning lands on which they had no desire to create any sense of cultural unity.
From the end of Charlemagne to the cold war, the western half of Europe has never really been united, whatever it is culturally nor politically, and still was culturally divided between romance cultures and germanic ones at it was before Charlemagne. The cultural divide has even known a wider gap with the fact that most germanic countries lost the link they had with roman catholic church, while the romance contries continued as catholic-based nations.
It is quite recently that it has been decided to give Charlemagne see the title of 'father of western Europe'. Especially in the post WWII period when the goal was to reconciate the french and the germans, and with this symbolic ' reconciliation' was used to promote a new political entity (european union) that unified the romance and germanic parts of western Europe from the first time since more than 1000 years (Rome's treaty ).
Again I have never considered Germany or Scandinavia to be in Western Europe.
It has always been Italy, France, British isles, Iceland, and Iberia.
Italy is the odd one here. While its history/culture has more in common with France and Spain, geographically speaking it isn't very western. Rome is as "western" as Copenhagen. And Lecce (the most easternly part of Italy) is roughly as "western" as Budapest. Benelux would be considered Western Europe geographically though.
Location: Near Tours, France about 47°10'N 0°25'E
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Originally Posted by Elkai
Italy is the odd one here. While its history/culture has more in common with France and Spain, geographically speaking it isn't very western. Rome is as "western" as Copenhagen. And Lecce (the most easternly part of Italy) is roughly as "western" as Budapest. Benelux would be considered Western Europe geographically though.
Italy, Germany, Scandinavia might be gteographically further east than British Isles, France or Iberia, that seem to me a non-sense to not include them in this loosely defined concept.
Italy, Germany, Scandinavia might be gteographically further east than British Isles, France or Iberia, that seem to me a non-sense to not include them in this loosely defined concept.
I do consider Italy to be a part of Western Europe. However, I consider Germany to be more of a mix, while Scandinavia is clearly Northern/Western Europe, except Finland which I consider Northern/Eastern Europe.
He probably meant it's not right near the Atlantic. Of course Germany has coastline. Croatia and Greece have as much coastline, if not more, than Germany.
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