Abstract
This book is about how every age reinvented the idea of Europe in the mirror of its own identity. I shall bring ‘Europe’ into focus as a cultural construction and argue that it cannot be regarded as a self-evident entity: it is an idea as much as a reality. Europe, I shall be arguing, is a contested concept and it was in adversity that it became a self-conscious idea. As the central and organising metaphor of a complex civilisation, the European idea expresses our culture’s struggle with its contradictions and conflicts.
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© 1995 Gerard Delanty
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Delanty, G. (1995). The Ambivalence of Europe: A Theoretical Introduction. In: Inventing Europe. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230379657_1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230379657_1
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-0-333-62203-2
Online ISBN: 978-0-230-37965-7
eBook Packages: Palgrave Social & Cultural Studies CollectionSocial Sciences (R0)