Europa

Introduction

Europe over the last years has lived through very difficult times. The global financial crisis had a devastating impact on the European Union. The financial problems of the eurozone were so serious that many external observers ventured to predict an imminent collapse of the European single currency. The peoples of Europe have had to learn how to live under austerity programs that imperil their living standards. Emigration problems have been exacerbated by the Syrian refugee crisis and Islamic terrorism. While the first signs of recovery finally appeared in the EU, the next major challenge came: Brexit. The decision of the British people to leave the European Union not only implied that the European project would lose one of its four major economies, but something that was potentially more dangerous: that if people were given the opportunity to vote on membership of the European Union in a referendum they would reject it. European unification could be defeated by its worst enemy, which mainly inspired its birth: nationalism.

The last ten years have been a golden era for doomsayers and specialists in Western decline, and there have been many of these since the beginning of the twentieth century. Before every single problem that EU governments and institutions have faced, they have enjoyed warnings that the EU is doomed to disappear and that Europe on the whole is increasingly irrelevant in a new bipolar world mainly led by the United States and China, in which the latter is destined to gain the upper hand.

Yet the most recent crisis has not been exclusively European but a global crisis, and it does not seem so serious if we look at it from an historical perspective. For a continent that has survived two world wars, the problems faced by the Europeans over the last years seem quite manageable. Europe has assets that no other power or civilization possesses. Its most important legacy is the world in which we live and this in itself is enough to guarantee a very relevant role in the twenty-first century. For Europeans shaped the modern world, as this book will explain.

This book is written for readers from all walks of life and from any part of the world; all of you who have a passion for history, an infinite curiosity, and an eagerness to acquire knowledge, not to be confused with information, which is easily accessible in the Internet era. It will be particularly relevant to those who have asked questions like: What has Europe done for us? What historical trends explain the present? Who provided the essential elements of our contemporary society?

The aim of this book is to explain why Europe dominated the world from the sixteenth century to the twentieth century, in what way did it influence other continents and peoples, and finally, what were the consequences of this era of hegemony exerted by the Europeans.

The curiosity of the Europeans for other worlds, their wish for expansion and conquest, as well as their economic needs took them much further than they could ever imagine. On reaching the zenith of power, the Spanish Empire not only stretched across a great part of the American continent, but it was also a global empire over which the sun never set. Portugal also consolidated an empire that included territories in the Americas, Africa, and Asia. The British Empire at its height in the early twentieth century covered a fourth part of the globe and held sway over a fifth of the world population at that time. In that same era the territories under French dominion were also formidable, as they included almost half of the African continent. And of course a very notable example of terrestrial expansion was Russia, which managed to include a sixth of the earth in its frontiers. Holland in the seventeenth century created an empire of much more modest dimensions, but that was enough for this small nation to reach economic hegemony.

Territorial expansion was only one indicator of the power that Europeans exerted over the world. Political influence was a very important dimension due to the fact that many nations were created based on the model of the European nation-state. There was also an ideological influence as the ideas of the old continent propagated across the world. Economic power had paramount importance, for access to so many natural resources at global level was going to be essential to explain Europe’s economic growth. Furthermore, European powers managed to create a global market. Last but not least, Europe was going to exert its hegemony from the cultural point of view, for thanks to the expansion of its powers Western culture prevailed in a great part of the world. There was even a spiritual aspect of European dominance as a result of the extraordinary propagation of Christian religion. Several governments considered that propagating Christianity was one of the main justifications for imperial expansion, and missionaries were going to play an essential role in this task.

A very important factor that contributed to European dominance of the world in all mentioned aspects was demography. Emigration of the European population and its permanent settlement in other continents accompanied the great powers in their expansion, especially in the Americas. One of the reasons why the empires reached so far was due to the migratory zeal experienced by Europeans and the networks of emigrants created by them, particularly between the nineteenth and twentieth century when the mass migratory waves took place.

Imperialism and European colonial expansion have not only been criticized by the people who considered themselves their victims but also by the Europeans, including the inhabitants of the old colonial powers, who were mostly to benefit from them. This is mainly due to the fact that these phenomena are identified with nations and cultures oppressed by the great powers, indiscriminate slaughters, and worst of all, genocide. Racism is also very much associated with European expansion of the world, and finally, slavery.

None of these evils is exclusively European, for unfortunately the history of infamy is universal; it took place before the era of European hegemony and it has continued after. But undoubtedly European imperial history is full of blood, submission, exploitation, humiliation, suffering, and injustice. This book will pay the attention that they deserve and the names of those who were primarily responsible for these evils will appear on these pages.

On the other hand, we will also examine the contribution made by Europe to the creation of the modern world by means of imperial expansion and European experiences that have usually been considered beneficial for the whole of humanity. This list would be led by the propagation of the system of government that is generally considered as the best, or at least the one that confers more powers upon the citizens: democracy. Also the ideas that enable its proper functioning, like the rule of law, the separation of powers, parliamentarianism and the principle of equality of all citizens, individual liberty, and finally, human rights. A very important European political contribution for all the peoples on earth was the nation-state. Another obvious contribution is that of the market economy that was inexorably implemented by people throughout the world as the best way of exchanging products between human beings and generating wealth. There is also a long list of benefits that many citizens in the world enjoy as a consequence of the propagation of European scientific and technological advances. These include more efficient agricultural methods that provided food for a rapidly expanding population and prevented famines, transport and communication technology that allowed a more rapid exchange of peoples, products, and capital, and finally, modern medicine that allowed many illnesses to be cured and has contributed to a general increase in life expectancy.

To summarize, we shall examine an epic history, as the expansion of Europe is, with its lights and shadows, its main representatives-so much those who inspired admiration as those who were despised-and the ideas that were propagated. With this aim in mind, we shall examine the expansion of several European countries by means of their military settlements, colonial empires, entrepreneurial projects, and migration of citizens. We will analyze one of the most fascinating chapters in the history of humanity, the arrival of Europeans in other continents. We will review the lives and works of sailors like Christopher Columbus and Vasco da Gama, Spanish conquistadors like Hernán Cortés and Francisco Pizarro, great figures of British expansion like Captain James Cook, Robert Clive, and Cecil Rhodes, and other extraordinary figures from France, Holland, Russia, and other countries.

On the other hand, this book will also pay attention to the experience of anonymous Europeans who arrived in other continents for very diverse reasons, from soldiers and civil servants, emigrants and fortune seekers, to prisoners and exiles. It will also deal with the confrontation with other peoples in conquered lands, how some of them were exterminated, and the clash of cultures. Finally it will also examine some of the literature that the European expansion bequeathed.

Europe not only shaped the world in the process of the rise of its great powers but also that of decline and dismemberment of its empires, as we shall see in the last chapters of this book. We will see how the crisis of imperialism and two world wars precipitated the end of the era of European hegemony. We will examine the impact that imperialism, taken to its extreme levels, had on European powers, and the birth of the postcolonial world, in which the European legacy provoked much controversy but was ultimately to be so influential. Finally, we shall see how Europe reinvents itself in the postwar era, and how the process of European unification and the internal organization of its society allow Europeans to continue exerting a very influential role and setting the main trends of the contemporary world.

A lot has been written about the era of European hegemony, about its empires and great powers. I would not have been able to write this book without benefitting from the contribution made by all authors that I mention in the bibliography. Nevertheless explanations about Europe’s leading role in making of the modern world are very rare. One explanation for such an important gap in literature is that historians, political scientists, economists, and authors in general who are interested in the topic of imperial expansion or global dominance have approached it from a national but not a European perspective.

Until only a few decades ago, Europe was deeply divided into nations, and ancient rivalries were rife. This is one of the reasons why both authors and readers in general showed little interest in looking beyond their own national experiences. Fortunately, to compensate for this there have been an increasing number of historians who have specialized in countries that were not theirs, and made magnificent contributions. Increasing mutual comprehension among nations, particularly in the academic sphere, may account for the fact that we now have very good books on the contemporary history of Europe, capable of looking beyond the psychological barriers of national frontiers.

On the other hand, very few historians have been tempted by the challenge of comparing the experience of all the European nations that expanded throughout the world. Undoubtedly the bitter legacy of old rivalries and war have been very influential, contributing to make all factors that separated them be considered more important than what brought them together. There were empires like the Spanish, the French, or the British that were considered by themselves civilizations in their own right, especially in the case of France. All of them were aware of being part of a great Western civilization, but not so much part of a European civilization, for Europe was a geographic term and a vain cultural reference but nothing more.

Nevertheless in contemporary Europe, and particularly in the European Union, the meaning of the term European has changed radically as a result of an ever-increasing union between states and peoples. Not only do we need a narrative that explains to Europeans the history and the culture that they share, as it has been done over the last decades, but also one that may contribute with an explanation about the role that they have played in the world and what their legacy is. This is particularly relevant at a time like the present, when the members of the European Union have been building a common foreign policy and discussing global strategies to defend and promote EU interests in the world.

And it becomes urgent with the global crisis that we have suffered over the last years, when the whole process of political and economic union has fallen into disarray. Nationalist, xenophobic, and populist parties throughout Europe defy the existence of the European Union, reverting to ideas that actually led to the destruction of Europe in the first half of the twentieth century. Islamic terrorist groups break peace and security in several European capitals with increasing frequency, and mass migration that fails to assimilate undermines the values on which European society was built. Perhaps more than ever Europeans need to come to terms with their history, and the rest of the world needs to understand the nature of its relationship with Europe.

Ever since wars and barbed-wire frontiers in Europe were replaced by the free movement of peoples, services, and capital through Europe, there has been an increasing number of Europeans who are aware that their identity spans a space that is much wider than the nation to which they officially belong. This has specially been my case. As a result of my family background I was brought up between two countries that have been historically confrontational, Spain and Britain. From grade school to college, I have always been surrounded by classmates from diverse European backgrounds. My wife is French and Spanish, at home we speak in English, French, and Spanish, and my children have the blood of three great powers: Spain, France, and Great Britain, and they are being brought up under the influence of these three cultures. It will therefore be understood why for me, and even more for my children as soon as they are old enough to be aware of it, to be European means something more than a geographic term, as it clearly defines what our identity is.

This European identity, as well as my affinity toward several European nations, have deeply marked my academic trajectory. I have always been very interested in comparative history, not only of Britain and Spain, the countries that I know best, but also of other great European nations. In my travels through all these countries I have always asked myself about their similarities and their differences, and the extent to which the history that they have shared or that has confronted them marks their present.

As it generally happens with Europeans, I have become particularly aware of my European identity during my stays away from the old continent. The origins of this book can be traced back to the journeys I have made through the world over the last decade. On the beaches of Saint Lucia, the cafés of old Havana, strolling along the elegant avenues of Boston or Buenos Aires, or on the train from Delhi to Jaipur, the European legacy in all these places led me to ask many of the questions that I have attempted to answer.

In this book I have followed a chronological and thematic approach. Chapter 1 starts by answering a question of crucial importance: Why did Europe, rather than any other civilization, manage to reach global hegemony and shape the rest of the world? The Renaissance mainly provides the answer, a remarkable era that allowed the early development of the knowledge-based society, science, empiricism, and the market economy, all of which were going to give Europeans a crucial advantage over the rest of the world.

The curiosity about the limits of the earth and the desire to discover trade routes that would generate wealth—together with an adventurous spirit developed by navigators and explorers in that era—explains why some European powers acquired such an advantageous position from the sixteenth century. Chapter 2 will examine how European navigators laid the foundations of an era of European expansion, and how the most important explorer of all, Christopher Columbus, radically altered the fate of Spain and the rest of Europe with the discovery of America.

The Iberian pioneers in the European expansion divided the New World among themselves and consolidated huge empires there. They were soon followed by England, France, and Holland in the process of building overseas empires. Apart from the Atlantic powers other European kingdoms were soon to follow suit in imperial expansion, like Denmark and Sweden. Russia on the other hand played a very important role expanding toward the East and consolidating an immense land empire. Chapter 3 will examine this process and answer the following crucial questions: What kind of empires did all these nations create? To what extent was their expansion motivated by the same needs? How did they manage to control and administer such vast territories? Finally, what were the economic benefits of imperial expansion and how did they affect international relations?

The era of revolutions had enormous repercussions both in Europe and the imperial world. For this reason Chapter 4 is devoted to this topic. The French Revolution shook the European world, nevertheless, a few years before the old regime started to crumble on the other side of the Atlantic with the outbreak of the American War of Independence in 1776. This chapter analyzes the impact that the creation of the United States of America had, and the ways in which the principles of the enlightenment influenced the founding fathers of this great nation. It will then explain how the revolutionary wave spread across the American continent, dismantling the Spanish and Portuguese empires. In this chapter we will also analyze the great changes brought by this era, like the abolition of slavery and the creation of a new Atlantic world.

The expansion of European powers in Asia was crucial to reach global hegemony. Chapter 5 focuses on this topic. It will examine the colonization of India by several powers until Britain gained the upper hand, and the impact that the Indian subcontinent had on the British Empire. The European incursion into China will be treated in detail, and finally an event of great repercussion on the Asian world: the rise of Japan as a Westernized power.

European emigration is essential to understand the impact of imperial expansion. For this reason Chapter 6 is devoted to the great European migratory waves through the world. As we shall see, the development of American nations from the United States to Argentina cannot be understood without the contribution of European migration and the networks they created.

Europe experiences a golden age in the nineteenth century, as Chapter 7 explains. Imperial expansion and the Industrial Revolution are the main explanations for the phenomenal wealth that European powers acquired at that time. This is also an age of improvement in all spheres, and great intellectual creativity that led to the emergence of a new European way of life that was internationally admired. All major political ideas of our present-day world emerged in Europe at this time. This chapter also examines the global impact of major European technological innovations of that era.

For a long time Africa was hardly affected by European expansion. Nevertheless, as Chapter 8 will show, in no more than two decades the European powers distributed among themselves this great continent toward the end of the nineteenth century. The so-called scramble for Africa considerably increased rivalries among great powers, with deep consequences in the era of imperialism, and it was also to determine the future of Africa and the Middle East.

The two world wars were the most devastating way in which Europe shaped the world. Chapter 9 examines how was it possible that Europeans fought these wars despite the fact that they were going to be so self-destructive, how so many nations were dragged into them, and finally, how they precipitated the end of the era of European supremacy.

An unexpected way in which Europeans influenced other nations has been through exile. Chapter 10 focuses on this issue that has not received the attention it deserves. Citizens were forced to abandon several countries because of political, ethnic, or religious persecution. This was particularly the case among members of the Jewish community. For this reason the development of the Zionist movement is examined here, culminating with the creation of the state of Israel. This chapter also dwells on the consequences of what I describe as intellectual migration and the exodus of many of the great European talents of that era.

Were colonial empires doomed to disappear or was this another consequence of the world wars? Chapter 11 deals with these questions. It also explains the rise of the Third World and the extent to which it lived under the influence of former colonial powers and European culture. This chapter also explains another factor that played a crucial role in the Third World: the rise and fall of the Soviet Union, and communism as one of the most influential ideologies of the twentieth century.

The final chapter of this book deals with the rebirth of Europe in the postwar era through the creation of the European Union and the emergence of what has been called the European dream. It explains the factors that made possible the welfare state and its effect on European society. It analyzes how European integration managed to eradicate war between its nations, and embark on a process of unification that has allowed Europe to continue playing a very influential role in global affairs. It will also explain why, in spite of all its shortcomings and internal crises, the European Union has set some of the global trends that determine the twenty-first century.

What is the final outcome of more than four hundred years of European hegemony in the world? What is the most important legacy in Europe? Can the present global world be understood without referring to Europe? Does Europe have a relevant mission in the world of the twenty-first century? The reader will find the answers to these great questions at the end of this book, and after the journey that we shall make in these pages through five of the most fascinating centuries in universal history.

Chapter 1

Europa from Myth to Reality

How Renaissance Europe Gave Birth to an Expanding Civilization.

It was not until the Renaissance that the peoples of Europe acquired the strength and capacity to expand their civilization. Europe is a small continent with a loosely defined eastern border. That little promontory of the Asian continent, as poet Paul Valéry defined it. As so many aspects of its identity, Europe got its name from a Greek myth. Europa was the mother of King Minos of Crete, who was abducted by Zeus and named most of the land after her. The Greeks started to call their lands to the west of the Aegean Sea Europa, to differentiate them from those in Asia Minor. The earliest references that can be found to Europe as a geographical term is in the eighth century, in relation to Charlemagne’s empire, which spanned across most of central and western Europe. It was not really until the thirteenth century that the continent of Europe began to be identified by such a term by its inhabitants. Until then Europe was more commonly known as Christendom.*

Together with the legacy of the Greek civilization and the Roman Empire, it was Christianity that initially brought the inhabitants of this continent together. External threats and invasions have been an important contributing factor to make people become aware of their identity and strengthen their cohesion. For the peoples of Europe it was the rise of Islam and the Islamic invasions that provided them with a sense of identity and an awareness of belonging to the Christian world. In the year 1095 Pope Urban II called upon the Christians to defend the Byzantine Empire from the Turkish threat. This campaign was followed by three other so-called Crusades, which allowed Christians to go as far as Jerusalem to defend this holy land where their origins were. Despite the mixed success of the Crusades they did contribute to the rise of a sense of identity among the peoples of Europe. They also reinforced their determination to defend their faith and their territory from external invasions from Islam or any other civilization. But at that time the Christians in Europe were a civilization fighting on the defensive and lacking capacity for expansion.

The Arab civilization for a long time had proven to be stronger than the Christian-European one, and it also showed much better prospects for expansion. The Prophet Muhammad, the founder of Islam, had called upon the Arabs to spread this religion. Shortly after his death in the year 632 C.E. Arabs embarked on an extraordinary process of conquest and expansion, with the ultimate aim of spreading Islam and converting as many infidels (unbelievers) as possible, as the Prophet had ordered. From the Arabian Peninsula they conquered Syria in 634, Persia in 664, and from there Muhammad Bin Qasim led the first successful attack on India in 715. The Eastern expansion of Islam continued across the Indian Ocean, until it became firmly established in the Malay Peninsula by the fourteenth century.

Islam even threatened the frontiers of the Chinese civilization in 678, when Arab pirates looted Canton in 678.

After spreading across the whole of North Africa Islam crossed into Europe and became the most imposing threat to the Christian world. By the eighth century, most of the Iberian Peninsula had been conquered by Islamic forces, and even then they threatened to continue moving toward northern Europe, through Gaul. In The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Edward Gibbon reflects on the consequences that the Muslim invasions could have had on European civilization, arguing that once they reached the Pyrenees they could have easily continued expanding all the way north up to Scotland, in which case, perhaps the interpretation of the Koran would at present be taught in the classrooms of Oxford.

The success of this Arab empire was mainly based on the reconstruction of economic life, which had been inherited from the Roman Empire in the Mediterranean. This was particularly the case with Al-Andalus, in southern Spain, where Moorish invaders benefitted from the remainders of Roman and Visigoth splendor, and revived it. Córdoba became a great center of learning. Technology was another key answer. The astrolabe and the quadrant were invented by Arabs and used for celestial navigation. They also replaced the traditional square sail, which the Romans used, by a triangular one that could beat into an adverse wind. This explains the facility with which the Arabs traversed the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean, and reached the Far East. The other key element to explain Islamic expansion is of course religious faith. Muslims were as convinced as the Christians that theirs was the true religion and that it was their moral duty to spread their religion to as many infidels as possible.

By the thirteenth century the Christians had reconquered most of the Iberian Peninsula from the Moors. But two centuries later Islam began penetrating into Europe from the east. In 1453 the Ottomans invaded Constantinople, and from there they continued a westward advance until in 1529 Suleiman the Magnificent attempted in vain to capture Vienna. While Islam was stopped in Europe it succeeded in its advance toward Asia. Turkish Muslim mercenaries led by Zehir Eddin and Muhammad Baber (a distant descendant of the great Turco-Mongol leader Tamerlane), seized Delhi in 1526. There they founded the empire of which Babur was the first great Mogul, and laid the foundations of an Islamic empire that was soon to dominate most of India.

Through its golden age, from the eighth to the twelfth century, Islam managed to dominate the Old World and until 1492, when Columbus reached America, it very much shaped this world according to its interests and values. Islam had brought together important parts of Asia, Europe, Africa and the Maghreb, and the Far East. Apart from religion, trade networks developed by the Islamic conquerors contributed to bring peoples from such diverse places together. Spices, silk, pepper, and pearls were brought from Arab merchants from the Far East into Europe. The first African slaves to reach Europe were brought by the Arabs.

The Arabs also contributed to the spread of knowledge acquired by the ancient Greeks. Aristotelian philosophy was revived in Córdoba by the Andalusian polymath Averroes.

Arabic numbers were one of the most enduring legacies bequeathed by the Arabs. The system of Arabic numbering reached Europe through Spain. Leonardo of Pisa, in his Liber Abaci, asserted in 1202 that the Arabic numbering system was better than the Roman one and contributed to a clearer thought. Once this numbering system was adopted by Europeans, it gradually expanded through the rest of the world.

The other civilization in the world that was much stronger than the European in medieval times was the Chinese. Europeans were introduced to the Chinese civilization through the writings of Marco Polo in the early fourteenth century. According to one of its fantasizing descriptions, both the Chinese and Indian civilizations had so much wealth that they had palaces made out of gold. From then it spread through Europe that this faraway civilization was not only richer than Europe, but also more advanced in all aspects.

While Europe was deeply divided into kingdoms, China had consolidated a strong state, ruled by an emperor who could trace his lineage back over a thousand years. It was administered by a genuinely meritocratic administrative corps, the Mandarins, who gained access to the Chinese administration through a selective examination system. By the thirteenth century, around ten thousand families belonged to the Mandarin elite. Not only were they a pillar of the state, but their values of hierarchy, public order, and Confucian ethics helped strengthen Chinese social cohesion in a remarkable way.

Scientifically and technologically China was also much more advanced than Europe. The blast furnace and cast iron were known by the Chinese long before the Europeans. They also used paper and the first printing techniques, almost one thousand years before Europeans. Gunpowder was also invented in China, and its first cannons gave it a military superiority that went unchallenged for centuries. From the establishment of the Ming dynasty in the thirteenth century, the Chinese consolidated a territory that was almost as big as continental Europe, and Chinese language speakers proliferated from the steppes of Siberia to the Himalayas and the tropical jungles in Southeast Asia. Last but not least, China was much more populated than any other region in the world; by the sixteenth century it had over one hundred million inhabitants, two times as many as Europe. The sense that they were superior to any other civilization and that they were very much the heart of the world explains why the Chinese referred to themselves as the Middle Kingdom.

The feeling of being at the center of the world to a certain extent explains the lack of interest felt by the Chinese in exploring other regions. Nevertheless, a remarkable naval enterprise was launched in the early fifteenth century. The Chinese navy had 1,350 ships in the year 1420, and in the first decades of the fifteenth century Chinese sailors had discovered a good part of the southern Pacific and had even reached the town of Malindi on the eastern coast of Africa in 1414.† The theory that the Chinese discovered America several decades before the Europeans has even been defended by some researchers over the last years and received considerable attention, although convincing evidence has not been provided.

China had all the necessary conditions for exploring and discovering new worlds and benefiting from them long before the Europeans could reach them but it was not going to be the case. In 1436 an imperial edict forbade the construction of ships and a substantial part of the Chinese navy was dismantled. The reason for such drastic measure is the fact that the Mongols were threatening to invade the interior frontier. The emperor decided that in order to maintain the frontiers of his dominions it was imperative to focus on its defense and abandon vague projects of expansion across the seas. This was a turning point in Chinese history. From then on China turned its back to the world, and the most advanced civilization became stagnant. The nation that for so long had the potential to acquire world hegemony as an imperial power merely became passive object of the great European powers.

For many centuries Europe was more backward than the Chinese and lacked the expansive capacity of the Islamic civilization. The key to explain how this relatively small continent mainly populated by backward peoples was transformed into a civilization that was to shape the world is in the Renaissance.

The Renaissance is the most extraordinary cultural movement in history. It led to the discovery of the human being in all its dimensions, and ultimately to the discovery of the world. It produced a new mode of thinking that was to distinguish European civilization and eventually give it a leading edge over all others. It allowed Europeans to use knowledge and culture as a means for self-improvement, growth, and expansion. The scientific inventions and technical innovations that it generated brought great improvements in peoples’ lives and led to a more sophisticated level of civilization. The changes this movement generated in all spheres of knowledge have been influencing humanity until the present.

The Renaissance began in Italy in the thirteenth century and it gradually spread through a great part of Europe until the sixteenth century. For this reason, Italy can claim to be the mother of modern Europe. It fulfilled all necessary conditions for inaugurating this new era. Its people lived on the ruins of the great Roman Empire, their Latin language gave them access to the documents that held all the secrets of the Roman-Greek civilization. Italy also had the Papacy in Rome, which was to act as bridge between this ancient civilization and the emerging one in Europe. Pope Julius II who commissioned Michelangelo with the decoration of the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in the sixteenth century was determined to recover the architectural and artistic splendor of ancient Rome. The cities where this movement mainly took place, such as Florence, Venice, or Genoa, were all prosperous trading cities with a financial elite that was willing to invest in the promotion of art projects. Finally Italy was rich in natural talent, for it was in these cities where the most significant figures of the Renaissance lived. At this time Italian cities became magnets attracting ambitious and adventurous people from diverse parts of Europe. They were also responsible for spreading the news of the Italian Peninsula’s civilizing influence.

Petrarch, a fourteenth-century poet and scholar, devoted much of his work to reviving the cultural splendor of the Romans that had been lost in the dark ages, a term which he himself first used. He is considered as the father of humanism, the philosophy that places human beings at the center of everything, not just as a passive element of God’s will or natural forces, inspired by Protagoras’s quote that man is the measure of all things.

Humanism inspires Giovanni Pico della Mirandola’s Oration on the Dignity of Man, published in 1493 as one of the most important texts of this era, which develops the concept of human personality and emphasizes the uniqueness and worth of individuals.‡

The acquisition of knowledge is very much at the heart of the Renaissance and as a result of it Europe lays the foundations of a knowledge-based society. From the early years of the medieval era the first universities were created in places like Bologna, Salamanca, Oxford, Cambridge, Paris, and Heidelberg. The first communities of teachers and scholars exclusively devoted to learning and independent thinking, to a certain extent free from religious or political pressures, had a substantial impact on European culture. As a result of this it gradually became accepted among the elites that knowledge was the key to human progress and prosperity. The new man that this era aimed to produce had to be educated from childhood until youth, and the proper intellectual training ought to be acquired for society’s most important professions. In this way universities became one of the key factors that gave Europeans an advantage over the rest of the world.

Scholasticism, the method of promoting critical thought, spread among the first universities in Europe, and its followers started traveling in order to meet each other and exchange ideas. In this way the first universities and their most notable scholars contributed to the spread of ideas around Europe. The greatest of all was Erasmus of Rotterdam, who took humanist thinking further than anyone in his time. Born in Rotterdam in 1466 he mainly lived in Basel and traveled frequently to London and Cambridge, for which he described himself as a man of the world. As an ordained priest he criticized the superstition and corrupt practices of the Catholic Church and advocated a new scientific study of divinity, in this way leading a new trend of Christian humanism. His Adagia, a compilation of Greek and Latin proverbs that was published in 1508 was the world’s first bestseller. Such widely used proverbs like, In the kingdom of the blind the one eyed man is king, or Where there is life there is hope, were passed from antiquity into our modern era mainly as a result of Erasmus. No wonder that Erasmus was the first humanist to earn a living from his writings.

Humanism and all the notable personalities that it produced during the Renaissance were responsible for a new frame of mind, which was to shape European civilization in modernity. As a result religious faith gradually moved away from superstition and became more influenced by reason, tradition was revived but it cohabitated with a great degree of innovation, and an inquisitive spirit led to extraordinary scientific breakthroughs. Above all humanism generated the growing conviction that humanity was capable of mastering the world in which it lived and that all spheres of life could be both controlled and improved.

Humanism explains the extraordinary works of art produced by the Renaissance that have been admired ever since, like the Old Sacristy in Florence, the Sistine Chapel in Rome, or the Mona Lisa. Their authors, Brunelleschi, Michelangelo, and Leonardo da Vinci acquired a reputation and celebrity that had been unprecedented in their professions. From then artists began to be seen as special individuals that deserved a prominent role in society. This idea has played a very important role in Western civilization until the present. A proof of this is the fact that in 2017 Salvator Mundi, a long-lost Leonardo da Vinci painting of Jesus Christ was sold at a Christie’s auction for a record $450 million.

Technological advancement played an essential role in this era. Around the year 1300 Venetians invented the convex glass mirror. A century later mirrors were rapidly spreading through Europe. Those who could afford it, initially only monarchs and aristocrats, paid substantial amounts for acquiring this expensive metal device, which allowed them the privilege of looking at themselves. Until the invention of the mirror, people had been able to see their faces vaguely reflected in bronze or other metallic surfaces, or simply in water. But from the early fourteenth century peoples of Europe began to see how they actually were. This had a great impact on individual identity. Until then a person’s identity was mainly acquired through interaction with other people. Mirrors on the other hand allowed people to see how they actually looked, and this played an important role in the rise of a new individualism. The fact that people became aware of their uniqueness as human beings contributed to their proper identification. In the Renaissance every person, regardless of social strata began to be known by a surname as well as a personal name. This had been the custom in ancient Rome, but only the royals and the nobility retained it until medieval times. From the thirteenth century, particularly in Italy and France, every person regardless of social origin began to use a second name, a nickname, or the place they came from as a surname, and this became hereditary. Individual and family identification was to have a substantial impact on every European society from then on, a name and a proper identity was no longer the privilege of kings, nobles, or popes.

Another major European invention of the fourteenth century was the clock. Other civilizations had developed methods for measuring time, as the Chinese did with sundials, but they were not as precise and efficient as the counterpoise clock that emerged in Europe at that time. From then any European city could not feel proud of itself unless it had one of these great clocks, usually in the façade of town hall or the church tower. Clocks reminded people of the importance of time in their daily lives, contributing to better organization and productivity. Measurement of time was improved by the Gregorian calendar, introduced by Pope Gregory XIII in 1582. It was an improved version of the Julian calendar that had been used since the times of Julius Caesar, and it was eventually to become the standard international civil calendar. From then on, time could be measured efficiently, just as people’s ages.

The fifteenth century brought the most important agents of change. Printing, gunpowder, and the compass were described by philosopher Francis Bacon as the three inventions that changed the world.

Around the year 1440 Johannes Gutenberg, a goldsmith from Mainz in the Holy Roman Empire, invented a printing press with moveable and replaceable metal letters. Until then Europeans had been printing texts using a form of woodblock printing, similar to the Chinese method. But with Gutenberg’s invention the press could be used as many times as necessary in order to print many different books. Printing became the first means of mass communication, allowing the production of books, periodicals, and newspapers in great numbers. In this way knowledge could be spread to the bulk of the population. With the exception of writing itself, no other invention has had such an impact on the history of culture as the printing press.

In 1455 Gutenberg tested the efficiency of his invention with the publication of a book that every good Christian wanted to read: the Bible. But the major breakthrough in the publishing world came with the appearance of vernacular Bibles. Only the educated elite could read Gutenberg’s Bible, which was in Latin, but people from all over Europe wished to read the Bible in their own language. The first Bible in German was published in 1466 and versions in major European languages were soon to be published. Vernacular bibles had a snowball effect in the publishing world. As people bought vernacular bibles they also became interested in reading books on other subjects; the demand for books steadily increased from the end of the fifteenth century, giving birth to publishing as a major industry.

Publishing had other important benefits in society. It acted as a catalyst to scientific advancement. Major scientific works like Nicolaus Copernicus’s book On the Revolution of Celestial Spheres, published in 1543, could be widely read by members of the scientific community. It also greatly limited the church’s censorship capacity as books allowed scientific ideas to be rapidly spread.

Printing also contributed to the spread of literacy. As so much knowledge was transmitted in book form, reading began to be seen as an essential skill that every person ought to have. As a result of the spread of literacy people gave greater importance to the written word, a factor that very much changed the nature of the relationship between citizens and authorities. From the early fifteenth century most European authorities began to keep records of people’s births, marriages, and deaths. This also contributed to enhancing individual identities, among other advantages. Finally, a less obvious consequence was to strengthen the role of women in society and improve their relationship with men. Europeans had always given women a more important role than other civilizations. Such powerful positions as those of Queen Isabella of Castile, Elizabeth of England, or aristocrats like Caterina Sforza would have been inconceivable in China, India, or even less in the Islamic world. Even so, women were still generally considered inferior to men in medieval Europe, but this gradually began to change with the proliferation of books. This allowed women—the minority of them who could read, of course—the same access to knowledge as men. It also afforded the most talented ones the opportunity to write books, which explains why from the sixteenth century on women authors began to emerge in Europe.

Gunpowder could not rank in importance with the printing press, but it did play an essential role in the emergence of Europe before other civilizations. In its basic form it probably reached Eastern Europe from China through the Silk Road. From the fifteenth century Europeans transformed it into an offensive and defensive weapon, and it was one of the factors that later made the military revolution possible, which played such an important role in Europe’s expansion. By the end of that century, European troops were experimenting with mobile artillery, which allowed lighter and more efficient cannons to be transported. The full impact of European gunpowder was appreciated for the first time when King Charles VIII of France invaded Italy in 1494, with what has been described as the first modern army. It included batteries of light mobile bronze field artillery, which fired iron cannon balls rather than stones. They destroyed every castle they aimed at. A new age of warfare had begun. From then on cities were no longer invulnerable behind walls.

The magnetic compass was the other great technological innovation of this time. Just like gunpowder, it seems likely that this was initially an importation from the East as both the Chinese and the Arabs had used rudimentary compasses. An improved version, consisting of a needle suspended over a compass card came into being in the fourteenth century and became widely used a century later. This magnetic compass allowed European sailors reach further than those of any other civilization from the late fifteenth century. But more than this tool, it was the proliferation of knowledge about the geography of the world that stimulated them to venture into the seas in search of unknown lands.

Scholars and savants proliferating in the Renaissance provided diverse explanations about the shape and the size of the earth, and the possible existence of other continents. From then on, Europe took the lead over other civilizations in the knowledge of geography and cartography.

The Catalan Atlas, produced by a Majorcan chartmakers’ school in 1375, constituted a major improvement in cartography by giving India its proper shape. Europeans at that time gave names to the continents by which they were later universally known. Asia was named after the daughter of King Oceanus mentioned in a Greek myth, just as Europa was named after the daughter of King Agenor. Africa was the name by which the Romans referred to Tunisia and from this time it began to be used to describe the whole continent.

After Ptolemy’s treatise Geographica was translated into Latin by Giacomo di Scarperia in 1406, the idea that the world was round was gradually to be accepted by the scientific community. Furthermore it prompted a debate on what lay beyond the borders of the known world. Particularly influential in this sphere was the work Imago Mundi written by the French cosmographer Pierre d´Ailly in 1410, which defended the theory that the world was asymmetric and that there were four continents in the world. This information began to be widely circulated when the first books on this subject were published toward the end of the fifteenth century. From then many poor sailors began to think of the fortune-making opportunities that could be found by reaching unknown territories. This eventually led to the first voyages that were to change the fate of Europe in the world.

The modern state began to be conceived during the fifteenth century. This was mainly thanks to Niccolò Machiavelli, another of the great minds of the Renaissance who has been considered the father of modern political science. Machiavelli worked as a senior official for the Florentine republic and also served as a diplomat in Rome. His magnum opus, The Prince, published in 1513, was very much inspired by the brutal methods of Pope Alexander VI and his son Cesare Borgia, which he witnessed when he was posted in Rome. The Prince is basically a guide on how to acquire and maintain political power. As the first political empiricist, Machiavelli based his recommendations on how people actually behaved in real life. It is much safer for the prince to be feared than loved, but he ought to avoid making himself hated.§ Quotations like this explain why this book has become one of the great classics of all time. From Henry VIII to Napoleon and Stalin, a wide range of statesmen from all over the world have not only read The Prince, but they have used it as a basic reference book to guide their careers.

Machiavelli’s Prince is one of the books that have been subject to most intense debate in history, as it is open to the widest interpretations. It is not clear whether it is a satire of the excesses of power or a compendium of good advice for potential governors on how to exert power.

Although Machiavelli was criticized for justifying duplicity and immoral behavior in politics, philosophers from Francis Bacon to Jean-Jacques Rousseau admired this work for describing the realities of statecraft and also exposing the faults of one-man rule. Above all Machiavelli made two essential contributions to modern politics: first, that politicians and their decisions have deep consequences on peoples’ lives; and second, he defined the state as a territory in which an organized community exists under one government. Society was never the same from the moment people became aware that the way they lived was not a consequence of a divinely ordained plan, and that their community needed to be ruled by laws and regulations that protected the general interest from personal ambitions and human whims.

The economy had a leading role in the transformation of Europe during this era. The Renaissance could not have taken place without the contribution of bankers and wealthy philanthropists, opening up vast possibilities for the creation of beauty and the expansion of human knowledge. The financial world experienced a notable transformation from the thirteenth to the fifteenth century, laying the foundation of the market economy as we know it today. Some elements of the financial world that made this possible were imported from the East. Leonardo of Pisa (or Fibonacci) studied Hindi-Arabic numerals and introduced it in the book of calculation, published in 1202. Fibonacci was not only responsible for giving Europe the decimal system, which makes calculation easier than Roman numerals, it also shows how it can be applied to commercial bookkeeping.¶

Banking as we know it today emerged during the Renaissance. Venice, a great trading center open to Eastern influences, became the world’s great lending laboratory. This explains why William Shakespeare was inspired by this city to create the most famous moneylender in Western literature: the Merchant of Venice. Here moneylenders made the transition to become bankers by developing the idea of credit, and propagating wealth in society as a result of it. One of the major obstacles for the emergence of modern banking was the fact that Christianity, just like Islam, condemned as usury the charging of interest. But shrewd lenders found ways of benefitting from lending money in a more subtle way by calling the benefit obtained from lending money discrezione, which was a compensation for the risk of lending money. It was in Venice where bankers began to be called by such a term, because they literally sat on a bench (banco) in front of a table, usually in marketplaces looking for customers. Bankers and merchants soon started using what became known in Genoa as the double-entry method, with credits and debits (credito and debito in Italian) arranged in a way that greatly increased accounting efficiency and eventually became universal.

A family that became particularly talented in all these skills associated with moneylending was the Medici, the first great banking family in history. The Medicis were originally foreign exchange dealers and moneylenders working in Florence. Among the customers of Giovanni de’ Medici were several cardinals. He also betted on the return of the Papacy to Rome at the time of the great Western schism. He was rewarded by Pope Martin V, who appointed him his banker in 1517. The Papacy constantly needed more income throughout the fifteenth century in its determination to increase its power and influence. Financing the pope’s wishes and needs was an extremely profitable business that allowed the Medicis to become Italy’s richest bankers. By the time Giovanni passed the business on to his eldest son Cosimo, he had established a branch in Venice and Rome and later added branches in Geneva, London, and Avignon. The Medicis were the first family to win princely status not by warfare, marriage, or inheritance but through commerce. They were also pioneers in philanthropy. Their patronage was responsible for some of the most extraordinary works of art during the Renaissance and it very much helped to create an atmosphere where arts and humanism could flourish.

The person who really showed the power of money in the modern era was Jacob Fugger, who has been described as the world’s first modern capitalist. The Fuggers, a German merchant family that made a fortune in the textile industry, was a very good example of how rapidly money