ABSTRACT
It is very challenging to explore Europe’s story today. European history has become a highly contentious affair – and rightly so. A ‘culture war’ of sorts is taking place around this issue, particularly between the ‘right’ (the simplistic view: ‘Europe is great’) and the ‘left’ (the simplistic view: ‘Europe is terrible’). And if one travels around the world today and asks about the story of Europe, the answers almost certainly refer to colonialism and slavery. In Europe itself as well, much attention has been paid in recent decades to the dark shadow sides of European history: the crusades, the nationalist and religious wars, the violent persecution of those who were considered ‘deviant,’ imperialism, colonialism, racism, exploitative capitalism, world wars, the Holocaust, gender discrimination. The list could go on. From this perspective, given its past, Europe should be silent about the global future – it has had its chance and wasted it – so it is claimed. And indeed, when Europe started to play its geopolitical role, it continued the long human history of bloody empires, of ‘extracting institutions,’ that we have seen throughout the later history of homo sapiens, especially after the transition from a hunter-gatherer culture to sedentary agriculture and empires. 1 Europe even doubled down on it, assisted by, among other things, its superior military technology.
