European history "The West"

http://www.letsgo.com/maps/europe/map_of_western-europe.png

And I'd include all the Scandinavian Countries too.

Joe(seems odd not to)Nation

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@hellogoodbyeyo,

SouthEurope

http://www.google.de/imgres?imgurl=http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/67/S%C3%BCdeuropa5.png/270px-S%C3%BCdeuropa5.png&imgrefurl=http://da.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sydeuropa&usg=__w5wKjQJdKdaVnS1NXPcNdv7nUhg=&h=105&w=270&sz=21&hl=de&start=0&zoom=1&tbnid=UHy1MXmy0slPNM:&tbnh=61&tbnw=157&ei=7XhpT_fdKsjMtAaN-aiaCA&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dsydeuropa%26um%3D1%26hl%3Dde%26sa%3DN%26biw%3D1016%26bih%3D589%26tbm%3Disch&um=1&itbs=1&iact=hc&vpx=111&vpy=351&dur=108&hovh=84&hovw=216&tx=122&ty=64&sig=116406469360944378052&page=1&ndsp=15&
ved=1t:429,r:10,s:0

Central Europa
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Central_Europe_%28a%29.png

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@saab,

Westeurope is what we call the countries which never were under the Eastblock after WWII. France, Germany, Belgium, Luxembourg, Nederland, Aurstria, Switzerland, Liechtenstein og Monaco.
Before WWII it was about the same countries which at that time and even earlier were called Central Europe.

Northern Europe is the northern part or region of Europe. Northern Europe typically refers to the seven countries in the northern part of the European subcontinent which includes Denmark, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, F Faroe Islands and Greenland, Åland Islands, Iceland, Ireland
Norway Svalbard and Jan Mayen
United Kingdom

Guernsey
Isle of Man
Jersey

Also it includes the countries parts of Central Europe which has borders to the Baltic Sea, Nordsea and English Channel

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@hellogoodbyeyo,

Parker's focus is on Europe west of the Oder-Neisse Line, what today would be the eastern borders of Germany, the Czech Republic, Austria, and Italy. Joe Nation's map is a pretty good representation of what "Western Europe" is, although Parker would also include Sweden.

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@joefromchicago,

"The West" as in Western Civilization includes countries founded by Europeans - US, Canada, Australia and so on. Didn't you read Niall Ferguson's new book "The West and the Rest"? I'm fairly certain Parker uses "West" in that sense and not as a geographical description of any part of Europe.

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@High Seas,

High Seas wrote:

I'm fairly certain Parker uses "West" in that sense and not as a geographical description of any part of Europe.

Well, in that case the German translation [Cambridge 1988 (dt. Ausgabe Frankfurt/Main 1990)] (I've only read that) is totally wrong. (Okay, he writes, at the end of the book, about how the military revolution of Western Europe applied overseas, but otherwise he really focuses on Western Europe ... in the German, translated edition)

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@Walter Hinteler,

Totally wrong? Maybe not - you can consider "the West" stricto or lato sensu. Parker ends his book in the late 18th century, and what Ferguson calls "the decline of the West" starts a couple of centuries later, so both authors (and translators!) can be correct.

The reasons for our decline, he thinks, are many, but primarily result from taking on too much debt.

Quote:

The world's power center is shifting from West to East because the eurozone and United States are collapsing under the weights of their own debts...............Ferguson outlined how the economic downturn we're experiencing right now is actually a symptom of the long-term shift in economic power from the U.S. and EU to China.

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/niall-ferguson-the-west-and-the-rest-2011-4#ixzz1plXC97Ng

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@High Seas,

I haven't read anything by Niall Ferguson, and I don't think that this was asked in the original question either.

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@Walter Hinteler,

Quote:

......Well before the Industrial Revolution, Europe developed the superior military potential and expertise that enabled the continent to dominate the world for the next two centuries. Here Parker discusses the major changes in the military practice of the West during this time period and argues that these major changes amounted to a "military revolution" that gave Westerners a decided advantage over people of other continents.

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I probably misunderstood following"the rise of the West 1500-1800"
and what were the regions during the time 1500-1800
Going that far b ack we Scandinavians did not talk about West Europe only going west was to England and later to Amerika.
What was the geographical West between 1500-1800?

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@High Seas,

High Seas wrote:

"The West" as in Western Civilization includes countries founded by Europeans - US, Canada, Australia and so on. Didn't you read Niall Ferguson's new book "The West and the Rest"? I'm fairly certain Parker uses "West" in that sense and not as a geographical description of any part of Europe.

Parker actually uses the term in both senses. The "west" that he discusses in the book is clearly western Europe -- it's the place where the military revolution of the seventeenth century took place. In particular, it's northern Italy, Germany, France, and the Low Countries -- the areas where the trace italienne fortress was developed to counter the rise of artillery. His larger thesis -- that military innovations from that period allowed "the west" to extend its power over the rest of the world -- uses the term to describe a broader "western civilization."

And no, I haven't read anything by Ferguson since I took a look at his laughably bad history of the first world war.

1 Reply

@joefromchicago,

joefromchicago wrote:

Parker actually uses the term in both senses.

Of course. But there's another, subtler, point on why the West (either sense) took over the world: we adopted new technologies faster than the rest, while the great Eastern and Arab empires stuck to their traditional ways. Longbows vanished from European battlefields sometime after Agincourt but were still in use by Chinese armies (inventors of guns) many centuries later. Fascinating article on that one here: http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/arxiv/26258/

http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/arxiv/files/50674/Asian%20bow.png

I like Ferguson, btw, I think he's right about the debt we have piled on, and in analyzing his "6 apps" for the rise of the West I worry we have lost his app #6, the "work ethic", through our steadily increasing reliance on government services. Speaking of which, have to get back to my app #6 myself Smile

1 Reply

@High Seas,

High Seas wrote:

But there's another, subtler, point on why the West (either sense) took over the world: we adopted new technologies faster than the rest, while the great Eastern and Arab empires stuck to their traditional ways.

That's certainly not Parker's thesis. Non-western societies were rather quick at adopting western technologies. Native Americans didn't waste much time adapting themselves to horses and firearms. The Japanese adopted firearms fairly soon after they were introduced by the Portuguese. The Mughuls, Persians, and Turks weren't very far behind the Europeans in weapons technology.

For Parker, the advantage that the Europeans had over non-westerners wasn't technological, it was organizational. Feudal societies couldn't afford the expensive fortresses or artillery to wage modern warfare as it developed in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The military revolution, consequently, forced a reorganization of the state apparatus. The initial technological advantage that Europeans had over non-westerners was temporary, but the organizational advantage was long-lasting (some might argue that it still exists today).

High Seas wrote:

Longbows vanished from European battlefields sometime after Agincourt but were still in use by Chinese armies (inventors of guns) many centuries later.

Longbows are better weapons than firelock muskets. They can shoot farther, faster, and more accurately. The only advantage that firelocks had over longbows is that it's much easier to train a musketeer than a longbowman.

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@joefromchicago,

True about longbows v. muskets, and if you read the article I linked you'll see there's a need to train not only operators but also manufacturers: that raises investment in longbows to prohibitive levels the Europeans weren't inclined to pay.

Generally I see no contradiction between Parker's organization and Ferguson's 6 apps.

These include competitive mass markets, protection of private property and the rule of law, devotion to science (esp. in re medical and infrastructure measures for public health) and technology, and the work ethic (essentially an elaboration of Max Weber's thesis) mentioned earlier. Of course these apps of "the West" can be emulated by "the Rest" (his term) and indeed they have been to varying degrees. Most of all I worry, with Ferguson, that our fabled organization will fail us and we will ultimately be brought down by our massive debts unless we act soon.

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For What It's Worth Department.

I just finished Robert D Kaplan's Balkan Ghosts and he defines the West by the high water mark of the Ottoman empire: The Battle of Vienna in 1683.

Curiously , he considers Greece part of the East even though the Greeks consider themselves part of Western Europe.

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@panzade,

panzade wrote:

Curiously , he considers Greece part of the East even though the Greeks consider themselves part of Western Europe.

Well, Greece was (part of) "East Rome", the Eastern Roman Empire.
The term Greek Orthodox has also been widely used to describe all Eastern Orthodox Churches.

(Today, the Greeks consider themselves to be part of Southern Europe, by the way.)

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@Walter Hinteler,

Europa, or Ευρώπη was a Greek nymph mentioned in Hesiod's history and also in the Iliad. Traditional etymology is said to be of "broad" and "face" or "eyes" but there's a more interesting Phoenecian root linked to Erebus (place of the setting sun, darkness), or the land "all the way West".

In that interpretation Europe is the land of the setting sun, the "West". Semitic roots support this lineage - in Arabic, the west wind is called "yarb"....

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@High Seas,

cool stuff; as usual

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European history "The West"

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