ABSTRACT
European history. Thus, for the sake of narrative flow, it is divided into two sections, Western and Eastern Europe.
WESTERN EUROPEAN DEVELOPMENT The countries of Western and Eastern Europe developed differently in several key respects, and one could argue that the Western European experience defines in substantive terms what Europe “means” today. Thus when Eastern Europeans stated in the 1990s that they wanted to rejoin Europe, they were asserting that they wanted to enjoy what Western Europe already had, as democratic, capitalist systems had become the norm for the continent. Understanding how Western European states evolved is thus a logical first step in understanding contemporary discussions of “Europe.”
