ABSTRACT
Europe's historical experience of governance can be broken down into a number of stages. The first corresponds to the period of Roman supremacy and covers the period from the rise of the Republic to its evolution into an absolute monarchy. The second is the feudal age and broadly covers the period from the aftermath of the fall of the Roman Empire. The third stage, or early modern Europe, canvases the period from the Reformation to the French Revolution and Napoleonic Empire, while the fourth stage takes up the modern period. The fifth stage examines Europe from the end of World War II to the post-Cold War bid for European unity and the reassertion of a statist paradigm. The Roman army had no overall chief, much as the Roman Empire lacked an emperor. After the Second World War Europe was divided by the United States of America and the Soviet Union into spheres of influence turning the colonizers into the colonized.
