Samson, Steven Alan

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Liberty UniversityDigitalCommons@LibertyUniversityFaculty Publications and Presentations Helms School of Government2011Michael Heffernan: The Meaning of Europe StudyGuideSteven Alan SamsonLiberty University, ssamson@liberty.eduFollow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.liberty.edu/gov_fac_pubsPart of the Other Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons, Political Science Commons, and thePublic Affairs, Public Policy and Public Administration CommonsThis Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Helms School of Government at DigitalCommons@Liberty University. It has beenaccepted for inclusion in Faculty Publications and Presentations by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@Liberty University. For moreinformation, please contact scholarlycommunication@liberty.edu.Recommended CitationSamson, Steven Alan, "Michael Heffernan: The Meaning of Europe Study Guide" (2011). Faculty Publications and Presentations. Paper356.http://digitalcommons.liberty.edu/gov_fac_pubs/356MICHAEL HEFFERNAN:  THE MEANING OF EUROPE STUDY GUIDE, 2011 Steven Alan Samson  CHAPTER ONE:  EUROPE: THE HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA  Study Questions  1. Europe and Its Others: Civilisational Geopolitics  How did the intellectual upheavals   of the Enlightenment alter the debate about Europe’s place in the world?  What  contributions were made by the Duc de Sully and Baron Montesquieu?   When were the  ideas of culture, civilization, and progress introduced into the debate and how did they  help shape it?  When did notions of a collective national political identity emerge?  The  emergence of political economy with the Physiocrats in France and Adam Smith in  Britain contributed to the realization “that people were both the form and the instrument of  government, the ultimate source of national power.”  How did Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s  idea of la volonté general [general will] reflect this new realization later noted by Michel  Foucault?  (23-25)  2. How were these changes reflected in the debate about Europe’s geopolitical character?   How were perceptions about the balance of power altered?  What countries were part of  the new pentarchy (introduced with the Treaty of Utrecht)?   When did Russia begin to  become a European (rather than Asiatic) power?  What changes were introduced by  Peter the Great [similar to those later introduced in Turkey by Kemal Atatürk]?  How was  this change demonstrated geographically?   (25-29)  3. What reforms were proposed by William Penn and John Bellers?  How was Sully’s   Grand Design expanded by the Abbé de Saint-Pierre?   How was his proposal   received?  What did Rousseau believe to be necessary for a more positive form of    unity to develop?   (29-32)  4. People, Nation, Empire: the Geopolitics of the Masses  How did the French  Revolution alter European conceptions of time and space?   How was the French  administrative system changed?  The reference to a Cartesian grid means a division of  local administrative units according to the geometric principles of the rational philosopher  René Descartes.  What did Tocqueville mean by indicating that the First Empire of  Napoleon completed a thousand year process of centralization?   How did this transform  political power and statecraft?  Except for political economy, which arose earlier, most of  the modern social sciences began to emerge during or after the Napoleonic era.  (33-35)  5. Regarding European unity, what were some of the chief features of the “ironic and  paradoxical legacy” of the Napoleonic period?   How was the French political culture  universalized?  How would you characterize the various schemes for universal peace  offered by Jeremy Bentham, Immanuel Kant, and Claude Henri de Saint-Simon?  (35-40)   6. What was the nature of the geopolitical order constructed at the Congress of Vienna?   What was the Concert of Europe?  How did the character of nationalism and  Europeanism both change?   What did Edmund Burke believe to be at stake?  How was  the Europeanness of nationalism evident in the “springtime of nations,” i.e., the  revolutions of 1848?   What were Young Italy and Young Europe?   What sorts of  European unity were envisioned by Victor Hugo, Pierre Proudhon, and Richard   Cobden?  (40-43)  7. How did the following contribute to the destabilization of Europe: the Crimean War, the  Risorgimento, Habsburg political expansion into the Balkans, and the unification of  Germany?   What does the author mean by saying that the idea of a harmonious Europe  was already a pipe dream by 1880?  (43-45)  Review  Sully    Montesquieu   political economy pentarchy   William Penn   Cartesian grid Concert of Europe  nationalism   Edmund Burke Victor Hugo     

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