ABSTRACT
This chapter starts by tracing the emergence of Europe as a distinct place. It identifies some basic features of contemporary Europe in relation to the rest of the world: its wealth, its apparent demographic crisis, its peacefulness, its institutions that cross national borders. The chapter outlines economic inequalities within European societies and contrasts them with the situation in the USA in the context of global inequality. In 2018 the European Union (EU) included 28 nation states, including all of Western Europe and Scandinavia with the exception of Switzerland and Norway. By the 20th century Europe had almost completed its demographic transition: high birth rates and high mortality rates gave way to low birth rates and low mortality rates. The chapter argues that the EU has actually undermined the European Social Model. If this is the case, then the relationship between the EU and Europe is even more complex and more problematic than normally assumed.
