Chapter 1: Resilient Europe: Confronting New Challenges

Memorize the "Major Geographic Qualities of Europe."

Long term global domination

Diverse physical geography, abundant industrial resources

Strong internal regional differentiation, specialization, exchange opportunities

High productivity manufacturing economies, development declines from W-E

Durable nation-states formed from cores, plagued by recent separatist movements

Demographics

Internal economic integration

Defining the European Realm

Note the physical and cultural diversity contained in the realm.

What are Europe's geographical advantages? Why is water so important?
Nowhere far from water; easiest, most inexpensive movement, allowed regular, long-distance contact, led to trade

"Short distances and large cultural differences"? What does he mean?
Short distances separate very different physical and cultural regions of Europe

Landscapes and Opportunities

Trace Figure 1-4 (I'm serious.) and learn the general characteristics and human uses of each of the four landform regions.

Central Uplands: forested hills, fertile valleys, largest coal reserves (early industrial centers)

Alpine Mountains: Alps, Pyrenees, Appenines, Dinarics, Carpathians, Atlas: mountain passes through this barrier

Western Uplands: British Isles, Scandinavia, Brittany, Portugal, Spain: older volcanic activity than Alps

North European Lowland: Southern France-SW Russia: below 500 feet, river basins, agricultural, long-term repeated
migrations, navigable rivers = transportation corridors

Historical Geography

What does regional interaction mean? Why is it important for understanding the Roman Empire? Why was Rome notable? When was the Roman Empire?
The Roman Empire was notable because it was defined by its political and economic organization of its diverse,
widespread regions; peak 2nd century AD; collapse 5th century AD.

What does infrastructure include? Why is it important for understanding the Roman Empire?
Structures that allow the flow of people, goods, and information; Network of Roman roads allowed the regional
interaction and expansion of Roman Empire to exist.

What does local functional specialization mean? Provide an example. Why is it important for understanding the Roman Empire?
Regions concentrated on production of particular goods; North Africa produced grain, Spain produced minerals;
Roman Empire grew dominant because of its highly organized production of goods.

What was mercantilism?
State economies pursued strategy of accumulating as much silver and gold as possible; foreign trade (imbalanced)
and acquisition (conquest)

The Revolutions of Modernizing Europe

The Agrarian Revolution

What factors to led to this revolution? What were the results?
Urbanization, markets; soil preparation, crop rotation, cultivation, harvest and livestock feeding improved; better
storage and distribution; introduced crops (potato); transition from subsistence to market agriculture

The Industrial Revolution

How did the realm provide a sequence of new energy resources?
Water-charcoal-coal

What factors allowed Britain to become the "world’s workshop"?
They controlled flows of raw materials; monopolized products in global demand; sole population with manufacturing
skills necessary; coal and iron ore reserves

What factors explain the spatial distribution of major industrial districts shown on Figure 1-7?
Presence of coal, iron ore, river sites for transport

Political Revolutions

What does nationalism mean? Why is it important for understanding Europe?
Stability of a nation-state depends on a feeling of nationalism among its citizens.  Europe is a collection a
nation-states that exhibit varying degrees of nationalism

What is a nation-state?political unit that occupies a clearly delineated territory, which is occupied by a
substantial population, and which is organized and recognized by its members and those who are not members of the
state. Is the US a nation-state? How do centripetal and centrifugal forces affect nation-states? Centripetal = create unity
(personalities); centrifugal = disunify (religion, ethnicity) (Why is the nation-state important for understanding Europe?
Europe is a collection a nation-states

Contemporary Europe

Argue against viewing Europe as a regional unit.
It exhibits little geographic homogeneity. Religion, language family, and racial ancestry extends beyond European
realm

Learn how to apply the terms complementarity, transferability, and intervening opportunity to Europe. Give an example.

Complementarity: one area has a surplus , or can produce a surplus, of a commodity demanded by a second area.

Transferability: ease of transportation of commodity between two regions

Intervening Opportunity: C and T will bring about trade in the absence of a closer source of supply or demand.

 Italy imports British coal and exports citrus to Britain

Urban Continuity and Change

Does the US have a primate city?
No

In what ways do European urban areas differ from US urban areas?
They are older, govt. housing common, rent control by govt., restrictive planning and zoning; more apt. living instead
single family dwellings; greenbelts; public transportation; less sprawl

Europe's Modern Transformation

Note the recent changes in Europe's territorial dimensions.

Note that presently Europe is facing the opposing forces of political disintegration and economic integration.

What does this "devolution" mean? Identify a European example. How is devolution different from internal regionalism? What is separatism? Note how devolution can often be traced to faulty political boundaries.
 Process whereby regions or peoples within a state demand and gain political strength and sometimes autonomy at
the expense of the center; Basques; internal regionalism rarely leads to significant political separation; separatism is
a peoples desire to separate from a state

Consider the 1997 election in the United Kingdom. How did the Labour Party use nationalism to help them win the election?
 Labour won by supporting, among other things, separatist sentiments of Scotland and Wales

Learn the other examples of current devolutionary pressures in Europe (Figure 1-12).
 Spain: Basque, Catalonia; France: Corsica; Italy: Sardinia, Tyrol; Belgium: Flems and Walloons;

How do subnational economic regions support devolution? What does the word subnational mean?
Subnational = smaller than the state; In subnational economic regions the state is less important than the other
economic subnational regions

What and where are the Four Motors of Europe?
The Four Motors of Europe are city-regions that have emerged as centers of rapid economic growth.  They include: Rhone-Alpes, Lombardy, Catalonia, Baden-Wurttemberg.  They trade among themselves, largely independent of state governments.

What is a regional state?
A "national economic zone"  that is independent of political borders.

What is a Euroregion?  A formal, transnational territorial entity created to increase economic cooperation and development and reduce economic inequality. How is it related to political disintegration and economic integration?  It is an example of increasing economic integration and political disintegration.

European Unification

What does supranationalism mean?
Voluntary association of 3 or more countries.

What does it have to do with Europe?  For >50 years Western Europe has been pursuing a policy of supranationalism (formation of the EU)

What is the history of supranationalism in Europe (Look at p. 45)?
> 50 years of agreements and growth

What factors led to the rise of supranationalism in Europe after World War II?
 Need to rebuild, fear of future conflicts

Where will the EU expand?  Eastward: Poland, Czech Rrep. Hungary, Slovenia, Slovakia, Romania, Bulgaria, Turkey; Norteastward: Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia. Why there? Historic links; and eastward expansion will link the EU more closely to the energy resources of Central Asia.

Explain why EU expansion into Turkey is a problem.
Turkey is an Islamic country with a long-standing antagonistic relationship with EU member Greece.  It's also a poor country that will drain EU resources.

How will expansion exacerbate the CAP dispute?
CAP (the common agricultural policy) is already a contentious issue.  Some countries, like France, want to continue state subsidies which the EU doesn't support.  East European countries might undermine Western European farmers by producing lower cost produce.

How is NATO part of European unification?
NATO is a unified body that organizes military activities of Western European states; represents a US-sponsored step toward European unification

Why unify?
An enlarged, unified EU will represent a large trading and resource bloc that will more effectively compete with the US and China than individual European countries could.