Balkans and Balkanisation: Western Perceptions of the Balkans in
Balkans and Balkanisation: Western Perceptions of the Balkans in

... in the United States and Europe, and the decision by NATO countries to intervene in the former Yugoslavia in 1995 and 1999. In contrast, the second group of authors considers the interests and disputes of the great powers over this area, situated on the fringe of Europe, as the very causes of the co ...
What We Mean by the West - Foreign Policy Research Institute
What We Mean by the West - Foreign Policy Research Institute

... Crusades) embodied the republican principle, and both opposed papal pretensions to Western unity based on a hi~~rchi~al church and dogmatic faith. Their long-simmering rivalries boiled over in the Renaissance and split all northern Italy into the warring camps of the pro-papal Guelfs and pro-imperia ...
Eastern Europe - Supplementary Notes
Eastern Europe - Supplementary Notes

... into several of the states existing in the region today. • Formerly independent Serbia and Montenegro were joined with Slovenia, Croatia, part of Macedonia, Bosnia, and other territories to form a new state. • This was largely an effort to thwart future Balkanization of the peninsula that might lead ...
S to ry - European Parliament
S to ry - European Parliament

Prehistoric Europe

Prehistoric Europe refers to the prehistorical period of Europe, usually taken to refer to human prehistory since the Lower Paleolithic, but in principle also extending to the geological time scale – for which see Geological history of Europe.From the Lower Paleolithic, approximately 1.8 million years ago, until 40,000 years ago, Europe was populated by Homo erectus and Homo neanderthalensis.In the Upper Paleolithic and Mesolithic, from about 43,000 to 6,000 years ago, Europe had Homo sapiens hunter-gatherer populations. During the last glacial maximum, much of Europe was depopulated and re-settled, about 15,000 years ago. The European Neolithic began about 9,000 years ago in southeastern Europe, and reached northern Europe by about 5,000 years ago.The forerunner to the Bronze age was the Chalcolithic or Copper age; an archaeological site in Serbia contains the worlds oldest securely dated evidence of copper making at high temperature, from 7,500 years ago.The European Bronze Age begins from about 3200 BC in Greece. The European Iron Age begins from about 1200 BC, spreading to northern Europe by 500 BC. During the Iron Age, Europe gradually enters the historical period. Literacy came to the Mediterranean world from as early as the 8th century BC (Classical Antiquity), but northern Europe, including northern Russia, remained in the prehistoric period until as late as the Middle Ages, around AD 1200. Around that date, Swedish and German expansion in the Northern Crusades brought the lands of the eastern Baltic into the historical record, while present-day northern Russia entered the historical record as a result of Russian expansion northward under the Novgorod Republic. Thus, much of Europe was in a stage of proto-history for a long period.