The history of European integration goes back to the early modern centuries (c. 1400–1800), when Europeans tried to set themselves apart as a continental community with distinct political, religious, cultural, and social values in the face of hitherto unseen societal change and global awakening. The range of concepts and images ascribed to Europeanness in that respect is well documented in Neo-Latin literature, since Latin constituted the international
lingua franca from the fifteenth to the eighteenth centuries. In
Europe and Europeanness in Early Modern Latin Literature Isabella Walser-Bürgler examines the most prominent concepts of Europe and European identity as expressed in Neo-Latin sources. It is aimed at both an interested general audience and a professional readership from the fields of Latin studies, early modern history, and the history of ideas.
Isabella Walser-Bürgler, Ph.D. (2014), is Key Researcher at the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Neo-Latin Studies in Innsbruck (Austria). She has published monographs, editions, translations, and articles on the Neo-Latin novel, the early modern discourse of Europe, and early modern Latin university orations.
"Isabella Walser-Bürgler’s book aims to demonstrate the genesis and development of an important discourse, the history of European integration, that Neo-Latin sources can elucidate in a much deeper way than only the use of vernacular sources can do. She provides a smörgåsbord of titles and quotations that undoubtedly will serve this purpose very well and makes us understand that a rich source material awaits those who immerse themselves in the treasuries of libraries and archives. The possibilities for new understanding not only for the past but also for topics that engage us directly today are legion."
Arne Jönsson in
BMCR 22.06.44
Editorial Note Abstract
Keywords
1 Introduction
2 Early Modern Latin: A European Language and a Language for ‘Europe’
3 Antecedents of the Early Modern Discourse of Europe
4 From Zero to Hero: Conceptualisations of Europe in the Early Modern Period
5 Perspectives
References
Students and scholars from the fields of Neo-Latin studies, early modern history and the history of ideas, and anyone interested in the history of European integration, values, symbols and identity.