ABSTRACT
The European spirit of conquest, so marked in all spheres from the twelfth century onward, dominant in the sixteenth, was then checked by religious and royal reaction. It was again released in the eighteenth century, termed by Michelet the ‘great century’ and in any terms the century of true renaissance. Let us look first at Europe’s progress in exploration and in acquiring new territories overseas, as well as at the limits, still relatively narrow, which marked its extent.
