AA. VV.Europa. Mito e realtà

"If, from a geographical and cultural point of view, the European reality has had a fairly clear identity since the beginning of our era, the concept of Europe has had to wait much closer to us to become more precise and to be realised in concrete economic and political terms. The intricate complex of nationalities, special interests, and the systematic use of war as a border demarcation tool, have in fact delayed until the threshold of the year 2000 the affirmation of an idea that had been dormant or stifled for too long. A group of authoritative scholars has scrutinised these phenomena, exhausting the vast historical discourse in the first part of the volume and examining in the second part the more peculiar aspects of European culture and the exploits of the great travellers who allowed that culture to take root in the remotest corners of the globe."