Europe: A Philosophical History, Part 1

Simon Glendinning is Professor of European Philosophy and Head of the European Institute at the London School of Economics and Political Science.

• Preface: What does it mean to be European? Introduction: Our Selective Memories of Europe Part 1: European Cultural Identity 1. Ideas of Culture 2. Greek, Christian and Beyond Part 2: Europe’s Modernity 3. From Barbarism to Civilization 4. The European Idea of Man 5. The Cosmopolitical Animal Part 3: The History of the World 6. Perpetual Peace 7. Attained Freedom 8. Real Happiness 9. Complete Democracy Part 4: A Sense of an Ending 10. Europe in Crisis 11. Dispiriting Europe 12. The Grand Tour: Looking Back and Looking Forward. Bibliography Index

"There is much to be gained from every chapter of Europe: A Philosophical History, and at every stage Glendinning’s skill as reader, expositor and critic shines through." - Jonathan Wolff, LSE Review of Books"In this remarkable two-volume work, Glendinning analyzes the ways in which European thinkers have revised their view of history since Kant. Kant believed people could, and should, work for universal peace and had the freedom to do so, but his successors thought differently. ... Marx subsequently ridiculed Hegel's Spirit (a religious notion) and called for proletarian revolution. ... Then came the onslaught of new views: Nietzsche saw contemporary society as uncreative and crass, Darwin saw humans as the product of evolution, and Freud saw humans as motivated, at least in large part, by aggression. WW I followed, as did totalitarian dictatorships, WW II, and genocide. Drawing on contemporary French thinkers, Glendinning expertly traces this philosophical history to the present, showing that Europe is now in an age of uncertainty and political manipulation. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Graduate students, faculty, and professionals." - S. Bailey, CHOICE"In these timely volumes, the idea of Europe - the site of so much contemporary political strife - receives a philosophical interrogation commensurate with its nature. Glendinning's rigorous and compelling delineation of modern Europe's conception of itself, as at once philosophy's historical cradle and its cultural offspring, deftly draws upon the very self-understanding he analyses to confirm its current exhaustion, and to affirm its capacity for radical self-renewal." - Stephen Mulhall, University of Oxford, UK"In this remarkable two-volume book, Simon Glendinning inhabits and works through a 'philosophical history of the philosophical history' of Europe. This is exemplary work, its readings developed with erudition, patience, and rigor. By the end of the second volume we come to see how the traditional concept of Europe is 'exhausted', but not thereby left entirely hopeless or without promise. This is a sustained, often brilliant, exercise of reading the unfolding deconstruction of the dominant European understanding of Europe, one that can indeed stand as perhaps its own best example of what the old name 'Europe' can still call forth in philosophy today. A magnificent achievement." - Geoffrey Bennington, Emory University, USA