ABSTRACT
If Germany, the past somehow reconciled . . . is to be united in more than name, and Europe no longer divided by the ‘Iron Curtain’, then the question arises, inescapably, as to where Europe ends (what is the status of Mitteleuropa or Eastern Europe?), and against what ‘Other’ (besides America) Europe and European culture are to be defined, if no longer against Communism. Our argument is that, if America continues to supply one symbolic boundary, to the ‘West’, there is also, implicit in much recent debate, a reworking of a rather ancient definition of Europe – as what used to be referred to as ‘Christendom’ – to which Islam, rather than Communism, is now seen to supply the ‘Eastern’ boundary. Our concern is with identifying some of the threads from which this pattern is being woven – the better, hopefully, to unravel it.
