The Mainspring of European Growth

Abstract

The Europe which emerged from the period of medieval consolidation was in many respects recognisable as the Europe of today. Distinct linguistic traditions provided fertile ground for the development of nationalism, and many political, legal, and academic institutions had been created which have enjoyed a continuous existence from the Middle Ages to the present. But in other ways the differences between Europe in the early sixteenth century and the twentieth century are more significant than the similarities. In particular, Western European Civilisation in 1500 occupied a modest backwater of world politics, whereas 400 years later it had come to wield an absolute world ascendancy. This transformation was the result of profound changes within Western Civilisation, which will be explored in this and subsequent chapters. At the outset, however, it is important to stress both the continuity and the dynamism of the process which make it possible to relate a succession of disruptive innovations, both material and intellectual, to a stable core of European institutions. Thus it is possible to maintain that, despite all the changes which have characterised Western Civilisation over the last five centuries, it is still essentially a continuation of the civilisation which had established itself in Western Europe during the previous half-millennium.