#1314 Roderick Beaton - Europe: A New History

00:00 Ricardo Lopes: Hello everyone. Welcome to a new episode of The Dissenter. I'm your host, as always, Ricardo Lops, and today I'm joined by Dr. Roderick Bitton. He's Emeritus Cis Professor of Modern Greek and Byzantine History, Language and Literature at King's College London, and today we're going to talk about his book Europe A New History. So Dr. Bitten, welcome to the show. It's a big pleasure to everyone. Well,

00:26 Roderick Beaton: thank you for having me. I'm looking forward to talking to you.

00:30 Ricardo Lopes: So just before we get into uh talking about uh how a European identity developed uh across history, uh, I would like to start with a sort of a methodological question here. So tell us about the branch of history known as history of ideas that in the book you mentioned, you draw from.

00:56 Roderick Beaton: Well, I do, because the book is, you know, is as well as being a history of Europe is in terms of things that have happened and people who have made things happen. It's also, uh, I also tried to write the story of the idea of Europe. And As I, as I mentioned, as you say, I, um, you know, I, I, the context for doing that is the broad area of academic study called the history of ideas and. As I understand it, I mean, this is where the traditional disciplines of philosophy and history, uh, really intersect, just as we have the, you know, there's a well developed, uh, Branch of uh academia known as the the history of science, you know, how discoveries got made, who made them, in what context and so on. And the history of ideas, if you like, is a, is a broader version of the, uh, of the history of science. A lot of the people who work in that area, um, uh, work on the 18th century European Enlightenment because, you know, that was a time when actually, you know, people became interested in abstract ideas. Um, AND, uh, and, and, you know, began to develop a historical perspective, uh, on them. And it turns out that within the history of ideas, the idea of Europe is an idea that people have, uh, you know, have, um, have discussed quite a lot. And As I was, as far as I was able to discover, it's this really goes back to a professor at the University of Edinburgh in the middle of the 20th century, Dennis Hay, who wrote an excellent short book on the history of the idea of Europe. And in recent years, uh, there are many academics, uh, some in, in the humanities, in literature study in philosophy, who've really taken up this idea further. So what I'm trying to do in my book is to bring together. What you might call uh narrative history, conventional history, uh, history of events with the history of of the idea of Europe specifically seen in that kind of uh in that kind of framework.

03:02 Ricardo Lopes: Right, so when we talk about the European identity, when exactly did it first originate, or I mean, is it even possible for us to answer that question about when it first originated?

03:19 Roderick Beaton: Well, I believe that it is very specifically that um as an idea, as an identity, it it it emerged in the middle of the 5th century BCE. And it emerged in the wake of the, the Great War, series of wars between the small city-states of the ancient Greeks, and the empire of the Medes and Persians in the Middle East, which at that time was the largest empire that the world had ever seen. And, you know, as many people know, in that kind of epic contest, it was kind of David and Goliath contest. And, you know, against all expectations, the, um, you know, the tiny Greek city-states won out over the mighty juggernaut of the Persian Empire. And it was in the wake of that victory that the Greeks who had won, really began to take stock of all, you know, how this had happened, what, what they'd managed to do. It was a kind of, you know, a kind of gosh moment. And Many things happened during the century that followed that that that uh victory, um, much of what we call ancient Greek civilization. But a small part of that, a very specific part of it, to my mind, was the writing of history by one man, Herodotus of Halicarnassus. Who was born about the time, uh, just before the, uh, the, the final episode in that war. He's born about 484 BCE and, uh, in the middle of the century, about 447 BCE he began writing his history to explain all the things that happened. And it's really thanks to Herodotus that we know, um, as much as we so much about these these particular, uh, particular wars. I hone in on something very specific that Herodotus picks out in his explanation for those wars. He goes to some trouble to explain that it was a war between not just what we might call civilizations. The war between continents. And according to Herodotus, he kind of weaponizes the geographical separation that the Greeks had become used to. It's traditional for them. They had drawn a Greek geographical separation between Europe on the one side of the the sea where they lived, and Asia on the other. And according to Herodotus, it was kind of the gods themselves. And he even claims that the Persians themselves believed that their homeland where they belonged was Asia. And therefore, it was a kind of insult to the gods for the Persians to try to usurp, you know, rule over another continent. And I don't, you know, I don't think this is what happened. I don't think the Persians had any idea that there was another continent across these straits, across that sea. It was Herodotus' idea that, you know, we Europeans on his side, were actually fighting to defend a whole continent. And in that way, Europe, which had previously been simply a geographical uh line on a map, became weaponized as an identity that people could fight and die for. And the perhaps extraordinary consequence of that is that actually, through the influence of the written word of Herodotus, that idea and that identity. Have continued with many changes, but nonetheless have continued in a traceable form from that time to this, making it a story of 2.5 1000 years.

06:44 Ricardo Lopes: So how does the idea of Europe relate to the idea of the West and what people tend to think as being Western society or Western culture?

06:58 Roderick Beaton: This is a big subject and it's actually a favorite subject of mine. Um, THERE'S a marvelous book by a colleague of mine, uh, Georgios, uh, Varouakis, um, called The West, The History of an Idea, and you were asking about history of ideas. I mean, Georgios is a, is a specialist in the history of ideas, and he's written a brilliant book about the history of the West in which. He states categorically, and he's absolutely right, that the West was never a concept for people like, you know, Socrates or Plato or Cicero or Charlemagne, you know, right through European history. The West was an idea, it was a construct that, uh, Yorios dates it to the 1840s. So it's a very recent idea. And I actually go further than Yorios Varouzakis in, in believing that. The West as a geopolitical active concept dates from as recently as the 1940s. Because the, to my mind, you know, the West, this idea of an American-led hegemony over a large part of the world. This was a kind of fig leaf for uh America's emergence as a superpower. And it made sense during the confrontation during during the Cold War with uh Soviet Russia, which was easily seen as a geographical east. But after the end of the Cold War, the West, I believe, you know, disappears as a, as a concept. And of course, the recent, uh, the stance of the recent of the of the current administration in the United States, um, has very much, you know, exploded. You know, it, it's really shown for what it was, that construct is an artificial construct, the West, to my mind, The history of what we call the West, you know, Western domination or Western Empire, uh, the West, you know, allegedly triumphed over the rest of the world. Um, I don't believe it did, by the way. But, you know, that triumph triumphalist story is actually not the story of the West at all. Um, IT'S a story of Europe. It was Europe that went out and made its mark over so much, so much of the rest of the world. And I also believe that that happened for very specific reasons, which we may come on to that, you know, during the 14th, 15th century, Europe was under intense pressure from the Islamic world to the east. And that was a motivation for Europe to sort of take, take, you know, take off across the Oceans. But I do believe, you know, there is a story to be told about how it's actually not the West that made the made its impact on the rest of the world. It was Europe. And I, let me be honest, I just wish I could sell that idea to a publisher. I have tried.

09:42 Ricardo Lopes: So, uh, but nowadays, of course we're going to come back to the history of this idea, but nowadays when people refer to Europe, what do they mean by it exactly? Are they referring to a geographical region with particular limitations? Are they referring to a political identity? Are they referring to an ethnic identity? At the end, if so, then that would have a genetic element to it, uh, all of the above, none of the above.

10:19 Roderick Beaton: Well, I mean, all of, I mean, the short answer is, of course, you know, all of the above, but one of the reasons I wrote my book is that it seemed to me that a lot of the people in, you know, people in politics, in public discourse who were talking about Europe, um, as they do, as they have been an awful lot in the last 10 years, actually don't know themselves. And I would like to think that this book would help to sort of pin down or at least provide the historical basis to help people formulate what actually they do understand by when they talk of Europe, because. OK, I mean, at the, at one level, it is, is geographical, it is lines on a map. Um, AND in many ways those lines are clear. Europe is surrounded on three sides by seas, by oceans, so the boundaries are quite clear. But of course, on the third, on the fourth side towards, uh, Asia, uh, the boundary is anything but clear. So, 2.5 1000 years ago, we had the Persians trying to cross that line being fought off by the Greeks. Today since 2022 or 2014. Uh, PERHAPS we have, uh, authoritarian Russia under Vladimir Putin, again, trying to, you know, redefine that, um, trying to redefine that line. So, uh, geographically, there is a contested space, and that's the kind of fact that we can map on the ground. And if you chart the line between those two points, you know, the Battle of Marathon in 480 BCE and say the siege of Mariupol in and destruction of Mariupol in 2022 of our own era, you know, there is a continuous line of continuous continuous battles, continuous contests over that. That line. But if it was only lines on a map in a way, there might not be such a story to be told, uh, this is where the history of ideas comes in, because on the European side of that line, there have always been people who have In different ways, tried to separate themselves or to understand their own identity in relation in opposition to those on the outside. So, Under those pressures and under enormous internal pressures as well, because Europeans have spent most of their, uh, 2500 year history fighting against each other. Let's be quite honest about this, you know, the identity of Europe itself has been continually contested. Um, AND that too is part of the story. And one of the things that, you know, I think comes out of, I would like, I'd like to think comes out of my book is that The kind of idea of Europe, the values that we associate with Europe, uh, today. Again, I would point out, they have very ancient roots. But these They only became formulated in a political way as recently as I would say the 1970s. Many people say that say the 1940s, but, you know, the, uh, European values of, you know, human rights, democracy, rule of law, um, these are really become enshrined in European documents in the, in the early 19 uh the early 1970s. And if you look back at a lot of European history, um, you know, These things are not very much to the fore, especially democracy. I mean, Europe, Europe was not democratic, uh, for many more centuries than it has been, uh, democratic. So when you take the long view, You know, my argument is that the, the content of the idea of Europe has been, uh, you know, as much up for grabs, open to change and development as the geographical line that divides Europe from Asia. But just like that geographical line, equally, I argue, there has always been one. And that's why there is a story, you know, a new history if you like, of Europe to be told.

14:12 Ricardo Lopes: Yeah, yes, it's interesting because geographically speaking, there are, for example, countries like Turkey where, OK, is Turkey a part of Europe, part of Asia, is it half European, half Asian, and then of course when it comes to Russia, I, I mean, is just the western part of Russia, part of, Europe and then all the rest is part of Asia, is Russian, European or not, and even I guess we could extend also the discussion to Eastern Europe because some, uh, many times people distinguish between Western Europe and Eastern Europe. I mean, why do they do that? Is it because they think of Eastern Europe? As sufficiently distinct from Western Europe. And so if and if that's the case, then is Eastern Europe less European when it comes to the core political identity and the core values associated with Europe, or what are they doing there when they make that distinction?

15:17 Roderick Beaton: Well, there's a lot in that question. Thank you. I mean, I'll take the second part of it, uh, part of it first, because in a way, it's easier. I mean, Western and Eastern Europe, those terms, uh, I mean, In a broad kind of geographical sense, I mean, I think you're based in Portugal, you can call that Western Europe because, you know, it's it's further west, um, if you're in, uh, let's take something fairly uncontroversial, uh, Poland or Slovakia, uh, you're obviously in, in Eastern Europe, but, The geopolitical sense in which people have talked about Western and Eastern Europe was, you know, it was a real thing, very specifically between 1945 and 1991, or perhaps 1989 when the Berlin Wall fell or 1991 when the Soviet Union uh was wound up. Um, IT was a reality created by the Cold War. Um. And that certainly had it, you know, it, it had its effect. I mean, I grew up for the, you know, all my formative years. I grew up in a world in which Europe equaled Western Europe. And the Europe, I, you know, I knew when I was growing up that I was lucky enough to travel in as a as an adolescent, um, was invariably Western Europe, you know, the, the Iron Curtain divided Europe in two. And, um, I think, you know, I'd be, it's true that, you know, when, uh, when I was working on this book, I mean, there were parts of Europe lying in the former Soviet East, which, um, you know, I'm the first to admit, I mean, I have much less direct personal knowledge of and had to work harder to learn about. But I mean, it was equally, they're all equally part of my, uh, part of my project. And of course, geographically, uh, Greece, which is my specialist area, uh, has always lain in Eastern Europe, whereas geopolitically, because of the Cold War divide, it was always thought of as part of the West. So there, you know, there, there are sort of odd, uh, you know, odd sort of, um, consequences of that uh divide. But I mean, it was an artificial divide. And as far as I'm concerned, I mean, taking again, taking the long view, Europe is You know, is, is the whole of Europe, however, it is defined at the, uh, at the time. Now, going back to the first part of your question, beyond the boundaries of Europe, there are today two nation states. Uh, Russia, uh, the Russian Federation, and the Republic of Turkey, as we're now supposed to call Turkey, um, which lie on the, you know, lie on the contest always contested eastern borders of Europe, and the relation of each of those to Europe is a fascinating story, which, uh, again, you know, I'd like to deal with more, but I do discuss it, uh, quite a lot in my, in my book. And one of the things I actually, uh, I actually came up with that is a kind of sophistry, but it helped me tell my story. WAS Um, the, for, uh, for 2 100 years from 1703 until 1918, the capital of Russia, of the Russian Empire, was actually in Europe. You know, Peter the Great invaded Europe, uh, conquered land from Sweden as it was at that time, and he built a new capital in Saint Petersburg. So, the capital of. You know, the, the capital of, uh, of the Russian Empire was actually in Europe. And for, for at least for those, for those years in Russia, the, the Russian Empire, the, the Russian elite, it was European, uh, you know, one of the extraordinary cultural things, uh, facts about, uh, Tsarist Russia was that, you know, educated elite Russians spoke French among themselves, uh, not Russian. A lot of the archives of Tsarist Russia are, you know, preserved in, uh, in French, not, uh, not Russian. Uh, Tolstoy, it is, uh, you know, uh, the probably the greatest novel ever written, War and Peace, really, you know, takes issue with that. But, you know, a lot of people, they actually speak French, um, and similarly. Um, WHEN, uh, the Ottoman Empire, uh, you know, came into Europe, they conquered, uh, Christian Constantinople, the great sort of imperial city of eastern, uh, Christian Europe, and, uh, Istanbul, Constantinople was the capital of the Ottoman Empire until 1923. Um, AND it was only after that, that, you know, the, uh, modern modern Turkey is its capital at Ankara. And, uh, as it happens, I've just come back from a trip to Istanbul and Ankara. And, you know, it's fascinating, actually, you know, standing on the Bosphorus, looking across from Europe to Asia and from, you know, taking the boat across, just how narrow that water is. And you've got a city in Istanbul, which is, you know, it has deep European roots, but can you call it today a European city? You know, it's uh exactly on the, uh, on the edge. And I think the relation between, uh, the Republic of Turkey and Europe is a fascinating one. There have been, you know, there were, for from the 1980s to the 2010s, there were very serious discussions, possibilities that, uh, Turkey might join the might join the European Union. And, um, I mean, I think that that becomes, you know, it's become vanishingly unlikely, uh, unlikely today as Turkey under President Erdogan has taken a different, uh, a different route. But it's, uh, you know, Turkey, like Russia, um, historically, it's been both inside Europe and outside. And it's a, there's a changing question of, you know, identity of self-definition for both those countries. Again, you know, Russia under Yeltsin in the 1990s was very much looking towards Europe. It was adopting, again, European methods of, of government administration. It all went, uh, it all went terribly wrong, terribly, uh, terribly quickly. But again, you know, there was world talk, it was Russia going to join the European Union. Was Russia going to join NATO, you know, and in principle, you know, historically, why not? You know, from a European point of view, surely one would much rather have one's, uh, large, powerful neighbors inside the tent or at least speaking the same kind of cultural diplomatic language, uh, rather than being opposed. But, you know, Putin's Russia, it seems to me, has taken the initiative in defining itself as Stalin's Russia did in opposition to Europe, rather than in partnership. And I do wonder where President Erdogan's turkey may be going.

21:42 Ricardo Lopes: Yeah, I think it's also interesting to look at how culturally we think about Europe and also the West. I mean, side by side, because for example, I'm a football enthusiast and in the European Champions League, I mean sometimes we get even Israeli teams there and of course Istanbul, I mean, there are two big themes there, Fenerbahce and Galatasaray, and it's not, and it's not like, uh, I'm not sure. I can, I can never remember exactly which one of them is on the Asian side of Istanbul, but it's not like we don't allow that team to participate in the European Champions League, right? And then, for example, in the Eurovision Song Contest, again, we extend. And sort of they invite to participate to countries that are part of what we usually think of as Central Asia that were former colonies of Russia or were part of the former Soviet Union and and and even to Israel and Australia. So I mean, culturally at least it seems like. That even when we attach euro to the name or European to the Champions League, that what we consider to be a culturally part of that, I mean, is not strictly geographical,

23:19 Roderick Beaton: right? Um, ABSOLUTELY, and, um, I mean, I confess, I mean, I'm, I don't, you know, I don't, I don't, I don't, I'm not, I'm not a very sporting person, I'm afraid. I don't follow football and I'm, I'm not worried by the Eurovision Song Contest either. But I do remember, I mean, I have, I have read that the Eurovision Song Contest was originally actually inspired as an idea. Um, YOU know, is 11 way in which European, the developing, you know, the European Common Market as it was at that time, actually attempted to put down cultural roots. Um, AND, uh, you know, it, it obviously didn't work very well because I don't think people think of it in that way. And as you say, it's geographical reach has, uh, you know, it's almost as, as bizarre as, you know, that of, of the West, you know, we talk about the West and it includes Taiwan and Japan and Australia. Um, BUT it doesn't include South America or West Africa. Um, YOU know, the act of cultural and geopolitical ideas, they have a life of their own. And, um, they can be rather bizarre. So, I mean, I think the story of Eurovision is an example of how an attempt to consolidate a European sense of sort of solidarity definition, um, actually, you know, failed very quickly. Um. And on the other hand, football, which as I say, I don't follow closely, but for what I do follow, I mean, I'm quite impressed that, you know, UEFA as an institution does seem to work. And you know, I sort of quite impressed that UEFA has stood up against uh FIFA and Infantino, and uh there is a sense, there is a sense of, um, in a community that, you know, I'm not myself close to, but I can see there is a sporting community that is European, that does seem to have an identity of its own. And, um, you know, one thing that does impress me and sports commentators in Britain, they're always able to pronounce the names of foreign players. You know, of European managers and players and so on. Whereas, you know, Brits famously can never pronounce foreign names. They never get the names of politicians right. But, uh, but football players, football players, they do. Um. Uh, YOU know, who in Britain knows how to how to pronounce Swedish names, but, you know, the former Svenjon Eriksson, you know, the jon bit, you couldn't, you're working out from the spelling, but everybody had it right, and they're, I think, in a kind of serious, there's a serious side to this that in those kinds of ways. You know, Europeans do share something. And um the the more more strength to that. Again, as you say, I mean, UEFA like the Eurovision Song Contest has kind of porous boundaries. And um certainly, you know, there's a there's a whole, well, there's a whole other debate about uh about Israel and indeed the very status of Israel is um. It it is part of that, it's part of that discussion because, you know, many people, or historians have described Israel as a European implant or transplant in the geographical space of the Middle East. And of course, this is profoundly and rather terribly contested in, uh, in our own times. Um, SO, you know, how do Israelis, uh, identify today in relation to Europe, which for many of them is their ancestral country. Um, HOW do, you know, how do people in the continent of Europe, uh, view, you know, the middle, that part of the Middle East. Um, SO, which again, it illustrates just how, uh, unstable these ideas, these ideas of these identities, uh, are. And I'm not, you know, I don't think there's anything wrong with that. I think it's the nature of identity to continue to develop.

27:03 Ricardo Lopes: Yes, but when it comes to the European identity, how strong is it really among people who nowadays live in what we call Europe? I mean, because of course nowadays we have the question of we living in nation states which was not quite the Same, uh, for, I, I, I guess most of history, even European history, but the, uh, I mean, is it really that people, I don't know, I'm Portuguese, is it really that people who live in Portugal or in Spain or France or Bulgaria, uh, really have a strong association. WITH the European identity, or is it weaker than, for example, being Bulgarian or French or German, and sometimes I mean people might even not quite like to be associated with a broader European identity.

28:09 Roderick Beaton: Well, I mean, the short answer is, I wish, I wish I knew, and I don't know quite how one would know. I mean, you know, at the level of statistics, I mean, there is a lot of polling on this, the Euro poll and various, you know, attitudes to the European Union. But I think to the extent to which people feel European or not, um, it's, it goes deeper than that and it's subtler than that. So I don't know quite how you would measure it. Um. And so it's bound, I think, to be a little bit subjective. I mean, it does impress me. I mean, parts of Europe that I know, um, you know, I'm always, I've always, you know, noticed the, uh, the European flag when it's being, you know, it's being flown on public buildings. And, um, it's all, you know, every time I see it, I'm also struck by the fact that during the half century that my own country was part of that union. Um, I almost never saw that flag in Britain. Um. Uh, AND of course, there is, you know, there's a whole, the whole issue of Brexit, um, which I try not to talk about in my book, but, you know, it is part of, uh, part of the history of, uh, of, of, uh, of these islands. And, um, You know, 1010 years ago, when a narrow minority of Britons voted to leave the European Union, there was a lot of discourse about Europe or somewhere else. It was us and them. Europe was the other side. But since the full scale invasion of Ukraine, some of the same public figures who spoke very vigorously against Europe and saw us as being non-European. Now talk equally vigorously about the defense of Europe, and they're very keen to promote, uh, Britain's role in the communal defense of Europe. And this is what, you know, I said earlier that sometimes I wonder whether the people who talk about Europe as an idea actually know themselves, uh, what they mean by it. Because there seems to be, it seems to me there's a huge shift, uh, a huge shift there, um. And I think it's a, you know, it's a matter of perspective of proportion. I mean, one thing, you know, I take the, the example, I, I would say, you know, in Britain, I'm Scottish, in, uh, you know, in, uh, in say, Lithuania, I'm British. In, uh, then in Greece, I, I, you know, I spent a lot of time in Greece. I was given, uh, honorary citizenship. So, you know, I could also feel, uh, feel Greek. And if I go to Australia, I'm European. And it doesn't, it doesn't worry me to have those several layers of identity. Oh, and I mean, as Scottish, I come from Edinburgh, not Glasgow. And at a certain, and at a certain level, that really matters. You know, you're talking about football, Celtic and Rangers, um. You know, those two cities are very close together, but I, in terms of identity, they're poles apart. Um, SO, you know, identity, it seems to me as the sort of hierarchy of identities. And I don't see why they should be in conflict. It's a question of, you know, at the particular moment under particular pressures, which identity comes to the fore. And I, I do wonder whether actually the, uh, Putin's attack on Ukraine isn't actually helping to, uh, You know, to bring Europeans together that, again, at a certain level, um, people who primarily think of themselves as Bulgarian or Greek or Portuguese or British, um, are also perhaps talking more about the common European identity, because they see that as under threat. And, you know, sometimes it's, you know, identity is In part, it's about defining oneself in relation to other things. So, the, you know, the military attack from the east is one thing that I think has probably strengthened the European sense of identity. And then now the last, the last couple of years coming from across the Atlantic, um, you know, we get the, uh, we get the, the, the tirades and tantrums from a very, uh, unstable and unpredictable US president. Um, WHICH again, you know, who, who basically seems to hate Europe or at least hates the idea of, uh, uh, of Europe as most Europeans understand it. Um, SO, you know, again, that kind of, uh, that kind of very negative, very aggressive rhetoric. Um, I'm sure I'm not the only person who lives in Europe who thinks, well, damn it, you know, I'm, uh, uh, you know, I want to stand up against that as a European. So I think there, you know, there is potential. It's there, but how strong it is at the moment and how much, you know, how it relates to the, uh, primary national identity, which still seems to dominate, um, you know, I think it's an open question.

32:51 Ricardo Lopes: Yeah, I think, I think it's quite flexible. I think it's quite flexible because even here in the Iberian Peninsula, I'm in Portugal and Spain, there are times where we talk about the Spanish people as being our Iberian brothers, but then there are other times where there's, there seems to be a big rivalry. So for example, if our national teams are playing against each other, of course. WE hate the Spanish bastards, but when, for example, but if, for example, Spain plays Argentina in the World Cup final, then we are suddenly Iberian brothers because we have to be against Lionel Messi, who is the rival of Cristiano Ronaldo, you know, so there's all of those dynamics playing on there. And also I remember when the late Jose Saramagu, the 1998. Nobel Prize in Literature, who was Portuguese. I mean, he had this idea that Portugal and Spain should be unified because of the Iberian identity, but I mean, Portuguese people didn't want to have anything to do with that, and he was even ostracized for a very long time in our own country. So, you know, it seems that there's sort of a A dynamic process in terms of how we think about our own identity that perhaps can become broader or or more limited depending on what we're talking about, I guess.

34:33 Roderick Beaton: I think that's that chimes very much with what you know what I was saying. I think you know you think of again, you know, another layer is the Iberian identity or You know, again, there could be, you know, sort of, um, uh, the, you know, another famous writer, Milan Kundera, you know, wrote very influentially about a Central European identity, which he felt had been, you know, eroded, been, been, well, sort of, uh, attacked by the, um, by, by, by Soviet domination in, uh, in eastern Central and Eastern Europe. So that, you know, there, there, there are, um, there are regional identities as well as national. But, I mean, I suppose one thing I, you know, today, I think uncontroversially, uh, for most people, it is the national identity that, uh, is predominant. And there are some arguments about, you know, exactly where you define that. So, you know, we have separatism in Catalonia, in Scotland, um, you know, and possibly in other parts of, uh, in other parts of Europe. Um. But, um, the, that, you know, that that whole, the idea of the nation as something that primarily defines people and one nation actually against another. Um, THAT idea is actually no older than the late 18th century. And it really came to dominate Europe as recently as the 19th century. Many of the nation states of Europe were actually created as recently as 1919 in the wake of the First World War. And some of those have broken up again, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, for example. Um, SO, the, you know, we sometimes, I think, you know, in adhering to the nation state and clinging to the idea of the nation state, I think, you know, we often fail to realize that this is only one way for people to organize themselves to define their identity. And Again, I think looking at the broader history of Europe and trying to, as I do in my book, put Europe as a whole in the primary focus, it, I would like to think of it as a kind of counterbalance to that. I mean, not to weaken or not to challenge national identity, but simply to complement it. But as well as being Portuguese, Scottish, Greek, etc. YOU know, we are all also European. And that matters because as Europeans, We share a history that goes back for 2.5 1000 years. Whereas, you know, the history of England or Britain or Scotland, um, goes back it's a number of hundreds of years. And I know Portugal is is one of the oldest states in uh in Europe going back to, I think the 14th century, certainly the 15th, certainly powerful in the 15th century. Um, BUT, uh, you know, even then, you know, Portugal or England was an independent identity, because of the, uh, you know, it was a monarchy. It was the monarch who defined the identity rather than the people. And, you know, the, the nat, the, the sort of national solidarity is something that came, uh, that came was built on that much, uh, much later. So it's, you know, that's one way of organizing societies is not the only one. And we have a much, you know, an older and broader one that I would call European.

37:42 Ricardo Lopes: Yeah, so, uh, going back in history a little bit, uh, what would you say was the impact, if any, of the Roman Empire on the formation of a European identity?

37:57 Roderick Beaton: Fundamental I think you can't, you can't really think of Europe post the Roman Empire in any other way than through the perspective of that empire. The Romans, uh, by pretty violent means, it must be said. Uh, UNIFIED by far the largest part of the European continent as we now think of it, that has ever been politically unified, as well as extending what I think of as sort of bulwarks of defenses in the Middle East and in North, uh, in North. South Africa. So the, the Roman Empire was in geopolitical, uh, terms. I'm not, not, I'm not speaking ethically here. It was in geopolitical terms. It was much the most successful European sort of political experiment that there's, uh, there's ever been. And Say what you like about Rome and many people have. Um, THE example of that unified continent is something that Europeans in successive generations and successive centuries have looked back to with different kinds of nostalgia. So, every attempt really to bring Europe together in one way or another has looked back to the example of the Roman Emperor. I mean, Charlemagne famously being crowned in Rome as an emperor of of the Romans. Of course, he couldn't bring back the Roman Empire Empire, but it was very much the. For what he was doing. Similarly, the rather, the rather vaguer, more inchoate, uh, but in, but very long lasting, Holy Roman Empire, which lasted for 1000 years for the Middle Ages until 181806, um. And I mean, again, the, you know, the French Revolution, um, it was full of uh invocations of the ancient Roman Republic. Napoleon, when he became an emperor, modeled himself exactly on the emperors of ancient Rome. And the Napoleonic Empire, the Napoleonic attempt to unify Europe by conquest was, you know, quite overtly in much of its symbolism and rhetoric, uh, an attempt to revise an extended version of the, uh, of the Roman Empire. And the European Union and its institutions, again, I think, you know, you could detect a lot of nostalgia for Rome. Uh, FOR Rome in that, uh, obviously not the institutions of empire, but the institutions of the republic. Um, YOU know, going back to, I think the 1950s, there's a, you know, the, uh, European, the European institutions offer a Charlemagne prize, um, you know, in the name of the emperor, who was again, the kind of, you know, sort of neo, uh, Roman, uh, emperor. Um, AND, you know, I think also the architecture of modern Europe. And indeed that uh European colonists uh took around the world, you know, it's sort of, um, you know, neoclassical architecture. It's imitating the buildings of ancient, uh, ancient Rome and ancient, ancient Greece. You know, look at the American capital, built on based on the Roman building of the American Supreme Court based on an ancient Greek temple. Um, SO, it's, um, it's something that, you know, it runs through, it's kind of in the cultural DNA of medieval and, uh, modern and modern Europe.

41:17 Ricardo Lopes: Do you think that, uh, with the fall of the Western Roman Empire, and er then with the, er rise of the er Byzantine Empire, er, that, There, I mean that division between the West, the Western and the Eastern Roman Empire, and for example, even religiously, the divide between Catholicism in Europe and Orthodox Christianity in the East. Or the Middle East, do you think that that historically has played any role at all in how we think about Europe and the East or the West and the East or what we think is part of Europe and what is not part of Europe?

42:14 Roderick Beaton: It's an interesting question that, and I mean, I think there's a lot of confusion uh around that. Um, I mean, I was very struck that, you know, a famous book, um, by the late Samuel Huntington called The Clash of Civilizations published in the mid 1990s, um, really defined civilization in sort of ethno-religious terms. And, um, He draws a line between Western Catholicism and its Protestant offshoots, um, on the one hand, and Orthodox Eastern Europe and Russia on the other. Um. And You know, I mean, I, I always had great trouble with that. And, um, you know, already, already, um, you know, uh, 30 years later, and that idea seems very, seems very outdated that Christianity, whether Orthodox or or or Catholic or Protestant, um, It's very much, you know, it's very much, it's history is very much grounded in the history of Europe. And you know, it's spread to other countries, including, uh, including Russia. But the division between the Catholic and Orthodox Church is, is a, to my mind, it's a division within Europe, within what the, uh, you know, what Catholic medieval Europe called the Res Publica Christiana, the Christian, uh, republic or Commonwealth is usually trans uh translated, um. But I do think, you know, the perhaps, you know, the most, the one of the defining characteristics and to my mind, uh, the, the great tragedy of medieval Europe was the destruction of the city of Constantinople in 1204 by the Fourth Crusade. That actually, Christianity, at the very point when controversially, of course, it was taking up arms against Islam in the east. Actually, Western powers, um, took up arms against the greatest Christian city in Europe, which is Constantinople. And because they, you know, they captured it, they sacked it, they looted it, uh, they dismantled the uh the Byzantine Empire. They also unwittingly destroyed the most powerful bulwark that Europe had in the southeast, southeast corner against the advance of Islam. Into Europe. So the long term consequence of the 1204 destruction of Orthodox Constantinople was the advance a few centuries later of the Ottoman Turks, um, who of course took Constantinople, uh definitively, finally in 1453. And by that time, they'd already conquered much of Europe in the eastern Mediterranean, um, at its, at its furthest extent, the Ottoman advance, uh, it twice threatened, uh, Vienna in 1529 and 1683. It, um, the Ottoman navy was stopped from from entering Europe through the Mediterranean. Um, IN 1571 at the Battle of, uh, Lepanto. But, you know, again, these things were, you know, pretty hard fought and pretty, uh, pretty uncertain. So that, I mean, if you like, the division in Eastern and Western Christianity, Catholicism and Orthodoxy, it was a classic example of how Europeans fighting among themselves. Uh, AND intra-European disputes actually laid, you know, Europeans open to, uh, conquest by, by, by, uh, by others.

45:42 Ricardo Lopes: Yeah, and conquest by others, which includes of course the Islamic expansion into Western Europe. I mean, what kind of impact, if any, do you think that Islamic expansion might have had in the development of the European identity?

46:02 Roderick Beaton: Um, I think it was, again, I mean, I think it was probably pretty fundamental because, um, You know, suddenly in the 7th century, when Islam began to, you know, burst upon the world, um, the um Uh, when Islam began to burst burst upon the world, I mean, this, this became a new threat to the already disintegrating, uh, Roman Empire. And from that time on, very quickly, you know, Europe and Europeans, the descendants, uh, cultural descendants, that is of Of Romans defined themselves by their Christian identity and their opposition to Islam. Now, I mean, one consequence of defining Europe in the way I do in my book, and it may be that, you know, readers, you, you and readers in Portugal, um, uh, are, are, you know, uh, may not agree with this, is that, um, actually, the, you know, the Muslim conquest of most of Iberia, actually, you know, detaches your part of the world from Europe for several centuries. Now, of course, the, you know, as we now know, I mean, the Muslim heritage, the Muslim, uh, element in the history of both Spain and Portugal is a very important part of both regional and national, uh, history, and it deserves to be, you know, we all acknowledge that, you know, the Islamic culture of, you know, certainly places like, um, you know, Cordoba and Granada, um, was, uh, you know, probably at a higher level than existed in Christian Europe, uh, at the time. But in terms of defining Europe as, as, um, you know, as Christianity, as a society, uh, ruled by Christian, by, by Christian rulers, um, you know, I'm afraid Muslim Muslim, you know, Al Andalus, Muslim Iberia stands outside that, and then the The reconquest, it becomes the process whereby, uh, Europe, just as it's being pressed from the east, um, uh, reconquers, you know, moves west to, to recapture first Portugal, and then all of, uh, and then all of, uh, Spain. Um, BUT whether in Iberia, or in the Crusades or in uh Southeastern Europe, um, that, you know, that conflict with Islam is, um, again, it probably it is probably You know, as much as any, it's a defining characteristic of, um, European identity. And, you know, right through medieval Europe, my medieval literature, medieval theology, um, you know, so much of the rhetoric seems to be driven by actual fear of Islam. Um, YOU know, almost an inferiority complex, uh, yeah, vis a vis Islam, which in turn helps to define the Christian concept, identity of Europe, which I think lasts for more than 1000 years.

48:52 Ricardo Lopes: When it comes to European colonization of the Americas and then of course also eventually Africa, parts of Southeast Asia and Oceania, I mean, do you think that uh that colonization from the 16th century onwards influenced how we think about Europe and Europeans?

49:16 Roderick Beaton: Absolutely. I mean, I think the European encounter with peoples on other continents who had who had no previous experience of Europeans at all. The, um, you know, these were totally people who were totally alien, um, in, you know, in every cultural sense. They'd obviously never heard of, uh, Of, uh, of Christianity, of Jesus Christ or of God or, you know, people who've been brought up to believe that mankind was created in the Garden of Eden, and that all human beings alive today are part of a universal plan devised by the Christian God. Um, YOU know, it was an extraordinary shock to them. And, um, you know, we, we often think of this as being Uh, a sort of national story. And of course, you know, Portugal takes the lead in this. It was the 15th century where, uh, Portuguese explorers, um, really, you know, uh, brought European ways, brought Europeans into contact with the very different civilizations of Africa, India, China, and Japan. Um, BUT probably the greatest cultural shock was the, uh, you know, was the discovery of the, uh, of, of the Americas. And again, I mean, the point that I would emphasize, and that again, I think it's worth studying more than I was able to do in my book. I just made a start, is that this goes beyond the actual, you know, achievements of Portugue of Portuguese explorers, Portuguese captains of Columbus, who, you know, well, it wasn't even Spanish, you know, we think of these in national terms because the stories were told that way. But actually, all Europeans were involved, um. You know, Columbus from Genoa, there were people from Britain. Um, A lot of the, uh, you know, the, uh, the, the money for these exploration for these explorations was raised, uh, in the Holy Roman Empire in southern German banks. So, you know, I think this was actually, it was Europe that was encountering other civilizations. And that it was similarly the whole of Europe that really experienced a cultural, a culture shock that he couldn't quite cope with. And I, I can't believe this is my own original idea, but it certainly struck me very strongly, and I brought it out in my book. But surely that cultural encounter must be one of the causes underlying the deep split in Europe that we know of as the Protestant Protestant Reformation. Because it began at exactly the same time in the in the 151520s, you know, suddenly the whole Catholic or indeed Orthodox Christian worldview was challenged. It was shattered. And Europeans themselves in response to that shock, uh, you know, began to, I mean, Europe itself broke. Apart, the, the chapter of my book that discusses both these things. Um, YOU know, I, I, I found this title, which I think sums up, I hope sums that up really rather well. It's called it, you know, Breaking Out, that's the Americas, and breaking up. That's the Protestant Reformation. I link these two things integrally.

52:16 Ricardo Lopes: Uh, BUT of course, uh, through colonization, Europeans came across other what we now call civilizations in America, Africa, and so on. But back then, Um, how did Europeans think about the concept of civilization, because I don't think that back then in the 16th, 17th century, Europeans would have associated the concept of civilization to whatever kinds of societies or political organizations that they encountered throughout the Americas, for example, right?

53:00 Roderick Beaton: Uh, INDEED, and in the 16th century, the word civilization had not yet been coined. I mean, it's a, it's a, it's a French word. It was first used during the 1750s, um, during the characteristically during the Enlightenment. So, you know, that's one way of defining human society that, you know, belongs to the Enlightenment, not to that earlier period. Um, THERE were two concepts that the Europeans at that time, uh, had been brought up with. One was, obviously, the defining one was Christianity. And by definition, all these, all these people they encountered were, you know, they were what they called heathens, they were pagans. Um, SO they had to be, you know, they had to be converted. Um, AND because they didn't, you know, they didn't have the benefit of the, uh, divine revelation that inherently made them inferior. In European eyes at the time. The other idea which was, um, had been revived at that uh just recently before that, and I think underlies much of the Christian Middle Ages as well, is what the ancient Romans called humanitas, which is a It's a, it's a term that, you know, broadly and roughly corresponds to our own civilization. It means things like living, you know, living in, in cities sort of urban frameworks, laws, um, you know, politeness, um, you know, ways of having ways of, you know, um, basically urban, you know, urban. Urban life. And some of, you know, some of that they may have seen in the peoples that they encountered. On the other hand, you know, the, um, certainly in English, the standard term, I think, you know, use of non-European peoples was savages. You know, they were, um, you know, just as the ancient Greeks talked about the barbarian Persians, the people who lived in other continents, they were, you know, they were savage. They didn't have the benefit of either Christianity, or the kind of, uh, kind of laws and, you know, laws and social structures that Europeans were used to. Um, THOUGH they never said that about the Chinese or the Japanese or the Or I think, oh, the surely the Indians, I mean, you know, these were, um, the people the Portuguese were first to encounter actually were more advanced civilizations than Europeans. Whereas, you know, the, the Central American civilizations that the uh the Spanish first encountered, um, the, you know, the, the, I mean, even today, I mean, they, they do look pretty grim, I think in the way, you know, the, uh, particularly the Aztecs with their emphasis on, uh, on human sacrifice, um. Though, I mean, somebody, I do, I'm not sure it was, somebody made the point that, you know, when, uh, when Cortez went to Mexico and you know, found it was horrified at the, you know, the human sacrifice, and actually the Spanish also practiced human sacrifice in the outer dafe, you know, they burned people at the stake, which is, you know, just as, just as horrific. So it's not to say Europeans were any better, in other words, it's a matter of perspective,

55:56 Ricardo Lopes: right? Uh, BUT after the World Wars in the 20th century and with the progressive dissolution of the what are now the former European colonial empires, uh, do you think that European identity, it changed in a significant way?

56:19 Roderick Beaton: Uh, Well, I mean, well, actually, well, I, it's not quite an answer to your question, but I mean, one thing that does strike me, and again, I think is worth discussing, you know, is worth, I'd like to write more about this, is the way decolonization, the abolition of all these, all these European empires has actually gone hand in hand with the spread of Systems and ideas and technologies that ultimately had their origin in Europe, actually right around the world. And You know, almost, you know, almost every country in the world uses terms like republic and peoples and and democracy, um, you know, regardless of whether they are at all democratic, um, I'm very struck that, you know, China with its ancient imperial history that's quite different to. European history and in many ways used to be superior to it, you know, is ruled by, uh, ruled by the Chinese Communist Party. And, you know, this is, at least in name, this is a system of government that goes back to a German intellectual writing in London in the 19th century. And, um, you know, in the when they have their, their, their meetings, all these delegates in China, they're all wearing European suits. And It's really strikes me, you know, the, the, the tailoring, the, you know, the garment, you know, why do they do this? You know, it, it's they, they're dressed as Europeans, but they dress with a uniformity that I think would be unimaginable anywhere in Europe. Um, YOU know, and, and similarly, you know, the world's media, um, they, um, you know, they, they talk in the same kinds of ways. People dress in the same kind of way. You have symphony orchestras, uh, you have no, you know, literature, novels, films. These are all things that began in, in Europe. They've gone, they've gone global, um. And that I think is probably as much the effect of European soft power, which went hand in hand with uh decolonization, as of the more aggressive expansionism of earlier, uh of earlier centuries. How is Europe in itself been affected by this? Um, IN a way, in a way, I think perhaps it's too early to, uh, it's too early to say. I mean, 11 consequence of that decolonization, of course, has been, you know, as I think I said in the book, um, You know, in early centuries, Europe went out to the rest of the world. Since the particularly Second World War, the rest of the world has come to Europe too. And in recent, uh, in the last decade, this has, of course, produced what we now regard as a crisis of inward migration of in the non-European, uh, non-white, non-Christian, uh, people. And You know, that seems to, you know, for some Europeans, that seems to create a real problem. Um, TO my mind, you know, these are people coming, you know, peacefully in in dispersed groups. They're not, uh, they're not led by military force. They don't bring it, they don't, uh, they don't come as a, uh, as a threat. They're not trying to take over our, uh, our European society. They're simply becoming, uh, becoming part of it. Um, SO, you know, it seems to me that the, the threat from, uh, from of Russian, uh, state power is a far greater threat than that of inward migration. And indeed, the, the, the threat of, um, so far only rhetorical, uh, from the United States again, you know, threatens, uh, I think it's a kind of more existential threat to Europe than inward inward migration. Um. History tells us that people who have migrated into Europe, which includes actually all of us at one point, some time or other, uh, you know, have become European in the sense that living here, they define themselves as Europeans. And it is those are the people who have, um, you know, who have established a European identity for the same reason. You know, if you look at the long history of Europe from, you know, from prehistory to the present day. There cannot be any such thing as any kind of racial identity of Europe because everybody is coming to Europe and you know, we've all mixed and mingled and these are the people who became Europeans. So, the, uh, you know, the kind of the American alt-right inspired idea of a European pure race, as something that, you know, Hitler and the Nazis promoted in the 1930s is sim is simply, you know, it's, it's simply nonsensical. It's indefensible. Um. Anybody can become European, just as once upon a time, anyone could become Greek or Roman.

1:00:51 Ricardo Lopes: And of course we also have the European Union. Do you think that uh after the creation of the European Union and as progressively more states became part of it, That being being in or out of the European Union has an impact or influences in any way how people develop their European identity. So I live in Portugal, we're still part of the European Union. The United Kingdom until 2016 was also part of the European Union, but then, Since then, it left, but I mean, do you think that being part of the European Union or not influences in any way how people understand their own European identity?

1:01:50 Roderick Beaton: I don't know. And in a way that that depends on, you know, how one sees the effectiveness, effectiveness of European institutions. Um, I would like, you know, I would like to think it does. I was obviously chagrined by, uh, by Brexit. Um, I persist in regarding it as a temporary aberration. And, you know, I think the history of the last 10 years, certainly the last 5 years since Britain formally left the European Union shows. Just how ineffectual even such a large, a large and, you know, economically, sometimes military power as Britain has been, you know, how actually ineffectual, uh, post-Brexit Britain, uh, necessarily is on the, on the world, uh, on the world stage. Um, BUT, you know, I also see, um, Uh, signs that, you know, there are forms of cooperation among you, uh, in Europe and among Europeans, which actually transcend the formal boundaries of the European Union. So, um, Uh, so, you know, with the, these various talk, you know, they, they talk about European defense, um, um, and then, you know, Norway and Switzerland are also not formally part of the European Union. But these countries have various, you know, uh, have, have different relations to the European Union. I mean, I think, I just think the initiative is always going to come from the European center. And it seems to be a shame from the British point of view that we remain on the periphery rather than at the center as we, uh, as we were. Mhm

1:03:25 Ricardo Lopes: So we've already touched a little bit on this earlier, but when it comes to the current war in Ukraine, uh, how does, um, the way we think about our European identity manifest in regards to how we look at Ukraine and how we look at Russia?

1:03:50 Roderick Beaton: Well, I mean, again, OK, I mean, one thing that, I don't know quite what, I don't know what the attitudes are in Portugal, but I mean, I'm quite interested by what I've read about the current Spanish government and the, you know, the line that is taken in, you know. Um, uh, Prime Minister Sanchez is, um, you know, resisting increasing, uh, uh, defense spending, and, um, you know, it seems to be rather relaxed about the Ukrainian war on fairly, you know, manifestly on the grounds that it's a long way away from the Iberian Peninsula. But, um, you know, with that, perhaps, uh, one exception, um, it's, I mean, I have the sense that, you know, you all Europeans are. Waking up to the, again, you know, the, the common interest. Um, AND this case goes back to what I was saying earlier about, you know, about Britain that, you know, in Britain is a very, you know, British governments, um, and we've had several, uh, since Brexit. Uh, British governments of whatever political stripe, um, have been in the, you know, in the vanguard of defending Ukraine. Um, AND the rhetoric of doing so is always in the name of Europe, not of course, a united Europe, because Brits don't seem to believe in that. But The fact that you can see, you know, European, a threat to Europe is perceived, even though they don't quite spell this out, a threat to Europe is perceived as a threat, even here in Britain. Therefore, like it or not, I think Brits are aware that they are part of something bigger than themselves. And I think that goes uh throughout Europe. Understandably, people are much more nervous in, uh, say, in say, Poland or the Baltic states than they are in uh in in France or or Spain. But, you know, it's a, it's a matter of degree. I mean, I think all European states are, are nervous to, you know, they see them, they see the threat in the same. In the, in the same way,

1:05:43 Ricardo Lopes: since we're now in a context where we through the news and other things, we are exposed to this potential immediate threat in the case of Russia, um, do you think that that makes our European identity more salient?

1:06:05 Roderick Beaton: Um, I mean, there are clear signs that it, uh, it, it is, I mean, possibly in varying degrees, depending how close one is geographically to the Russian threat. So I think it's, you know, it's visibly more of an issue in countries like Poland or the Baltics than it is. Uh, IN Iberia, but, um, clearly, you know, there is a, a common perception that this is a, a threat to, uh, to all. What does disturb me is how, you know, there are potential, uh, quite visible counter pressures, um. Uh, THERE are far right political parties which are gaining salience in many parts of Europe, which, uh, bizarrely given the history, um, seem in some cases also to be actively pro-Russian, um, the Alternativa F Deutschland. The alternative for Germany. I mean, it seems to be particularly, um, you know, bizarre, extraordinary in that, in that, uh, context. But the same thing is visible in, in Slovakia, where the, um, the, the, the president, uh, is, um, is again, visibly pro, uh, pro-Russian. And what, what, you know, what this looks like to me is, these are countries that They were, we, we think of it as liberated from Russian control in 1989, but actually, has integration with Europe failed to the point that they actually are nostalgic for Russian rule, that they actually want to go back to that. And I mean, uh, I, I'm even more puzzled in the case of Poland, where there is a visceral fear of Russians, which is grounded very, very solidly in almost 200 years of history. And yet, while the current Polish government has rowed back from the sort of far right position of the previous one. The Poles have also elected a president who, while not pro-Russian, does seem to be uh anti-European. And if you're anti-European in the in Central or Eastern European, you know, which way you're going to go? Um, I'd have thought that the, you know, the, the fear or the possibility that uh Russia could exploit those internal European divisions and, um, Actually regain the kind of foothold in Europe that Soviet Russia had during the Cold War. I think that is a very real fear for all Europeans. Um, AND again, you know, I think, you know, worrying about migrants crossing the Mediterranean or the English Channel, uh, you know, um, defenseless people, you know, I think it's just, you know, it's just, uh, it's just bizarre, you know, the, these threats cannot be compared.

1:08:46 Ricardo Lopes: Yeah. No, uh, actually I was going to ask you about immigrants because, I mean, is it the case that um across European history, um, Things like, for example, skin color or other aspects of people's physiognomy or their, of course, national identity was not much of a thing until the development of modern nation states, but things like ethnicity, for example, really play a big role when it comes to People looking at someone living in Europe and considering them to be foreign or not, or do you think that the more recent political developments in terms of, for example, the far right across different European countries framing immigration as an invasion of Europe. Associate associating it to, for example, African people, people from the Middle East, people from cultural backgrounds that are sufficiently different from what we tend to associate with European culture and different ethnic identities has made that more salient.

1:10:18 Roderick Beaton: Well, I mean, I mean, to my mind. The differences among human people's populations are cultural, not. Uh, ETHNIC or, you know, it's not, it's not biology that really that makes people that that makes people different. I mean, biologically we are all, we're all one species and things like skin color, shape of eyes or whatever, you know, color of hair. These are, you know, these are, these are pretty superficial differences among people. But of course, you know, people have always, have always divided, you know, they've always divided into groups, they see people as different in one way or another, and. There obviously are, you know, deep, well, as I said earlier, you know, when Europeans first went to the Americas, there were total cultural differences between them. They were, they had literally nothing in common. Um. So the, you know, the peoples they encountered were as different as you could possibly be. And, you know, what we call ethnic or racial differences, they, you know, they, they must have existed on the other side as well. So, you know, if, if you live, you know, if you lived in North America, say, In the 17th or 18th century, you know, your lands are being taken by people with white skins and dressed in particular ways, practicing a particular religion. Um, YOU know, in fact, in North America, it's a free for all. I mean, almost every European nation has a, uh, you know, has a hand in trying to conquer bits of North America. Um. At various times, and I'm sure the, you know, the native population couldn't tell the difference and certainly, you know, why should they care? They're all just Europeans. So, there are these kind of, you know, to begin with, you know, um, the cultural differences, which are absolute because people live on different continents without contact. But, As soon as communication opens up between them, you know, people are communicating, they're traveling, they're intermarrying, they're, you know, these, these differences begin to begin to be ironed out. And, um, you know, and and people move. So, that's, you know, globalization, if you like, begins in the 15th, 16th century, uh, I suppose. And it's a, you know, it's a probably, it's a probably unstoppable, uh, unstoppable process. Um. And, you know, would we be better if actually all these divisions were reinstated that people couldn't travel from one continent to another, um, you know, you know, imagine the sort of far right program of what they call re-migration. Suppose all the dark skinned people or the Muslims were actually forced out of Europe. I mean, it's, it's, it's unimaginable. It's impractical. But I mean, just imagine, you know, I mean, how could you imagine such a thing? What would you be left with? Um. You know, would it, would it make sense? And the point isn't, isn't the cul the color of people's skin, people's skins, or in today's, I think, broadly more secular world, the religion, I mean, religion could become more of a factor, and that would make a difference. But in, in, as I say, in today's sort of broadly secular, broadly global world, I mean, people coming into Europe who are, you know, are they're African heritage, they may be Muslim, they may be of other religions or no religion, um. I mean, the broad position, as I would understand it is they want to come to Europe. So long as they actually want to become European, in a broad sense, then, you know, why should they not also be welcome? Um, YOU know, I think the fear is of people who enter Europe who don't wish to become European and want to impose something else on those who are already here. And there, as I said before, you know, it seems to be the, the real threat is the people who outside Europe, who actually have the power to do that, which is, you know, the great powers, Russia. Uh, Russia, America, you know, I'm kind of looking to China because China is a long way away. And, uh, you know, uh, we talk about threats from China, but, you know, it is a, it is much further away from us than either Russia or, uh, or America.

1:14:18 Ricardo Lopes: So I have one last question then. We've already touched a little bit on it, but I would like to get a little bit deeper into it. So, uh, of course, your book is about Europe and the European identity, but We, uh, when we talk about the West, we tend to, I mean, our understanding of the West tends to be, to be very Eurocentric, and then of course we tend to, uh, associate it with the, uh, Greco-Roman, with the basis of a Greco-Roman culture and the Judeo-Christian culture. I mean, but uh, do you think that the way we understand the West. I is the same way we understand Europe and the European identity, or, uh, if not, what's the distinction there?

1:15:16 Roderick Beaton: Well, I think the West, in inverted commas, has had its day. I think there actually is no such thing. It was constructed in the wake of the Second World War. It was a kind of vehicle for American hegemony, and it no longer exists. Um One of the things that I feel I've learned from studying the history of Europe, and as I said earlier, you know, I'd like to study more is the, you know, the actual impact on the rest of the world that we loosely term Western. It's not Western at all. It is European. And I would actually like to, you know, look at the impact of Europe on the rest of the world. Um, DECOUPLING Europe from this broader, uh, um, idea of, of the West. Um, YOU know, the United States, uh, I mean, became a superpower really quite, really quite recently. Um, AND it is itself, you know, born out of, born out of Europe, and it may now, uh, for geopolitical and cultural reasons be drawing in a diff, drawing in a different direction, which parts company from, uh, from Europe and, you know, in a sense, uh, sense, fair enough, you know, geopolitically, uh, that may be uncomfortable for Europeans, but it also, it also makes a certain amount of sense. But what I would say is, In that world in which there is no longer a West in which Europeans are cozily sort of uh aligned with America, uh, in that world, let's take stock of actually where we come from as Europeans. What defines us as Europeans in relation to the world? What have our European ancestors done to impact the rest of the, the world? You know, why is it that, you know, people wear, people wear dinner suits and, uh, You know, I talk about republics and play symphony orchestras in, in China and all over Africa and the Americas. Um, YOU know, let's look at that European, uh, contribution, um. It's, it's Europe that if you like, did it, even if it also lost it, not, not the West. I mean, to me, the West is a kind of, it's a kind of fake concept. Let's get beyond the West. Let's look at the whole of the rest of the world, and then look at Europe's actually quite precarious, but nonetheless, long lasting impact on that rest of the world.

1:17:39 Ricardo Lopes: Great, so let's end on that note then, Dr. Bitten, and of course your book is again Europe A New History, and I will be leaving a link to it in the description of the interview. And thank you so much for taking the time to come on the show. It's been a fascinating conversation. Well,

1:17:57 Roderick Beaton: thank you, Ricardo. I've really enjoyed it too, and I hope your listeners enjoy it as well.

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