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Antony Alcock recounts the historical development of Europe from the Greek city-states through to the 1992 Maastricht Treaty on European integration. Amongst other things the book explains the rise of Christianity and highlights the significance of the fall of the western half of the Roman Empire and the survival of the eastern half for another 1000 years. It examines the attempts by the Papacy and the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation to recreate European unity and how divisions within and between these two institutions led to the fragmentation of Europe into states.The author relates how the voyages of discovery led to the domination of the world by western Europe, contrasts royal absolutism on the continent with the development of British political liberty, traces the effects of the French Revolution on nationalism and the impact of the industrial revolution on the European balance of power leading up to the two world wars. The last chapter concentrates on the process of integration since 1945 and the collapse of the Soviet Empire.