The Invention of Europe

the Invention of Europe is a test of Emmanuel Todd, published in 1990 with the editions of the Threshold.

Presentation

In this test, Todd tries to explain overall the events which shook the Europe since 1500. Here are the principal tension fields:

the elimination of illiteracy of mass extended in Europe by contagion starting from areas dominated by the stock family, namely an axis Germanic Suisse Sweden; this family type indeed has a particularly high cultural potential (cf early elimination of illiteracy of the Japan);
the elimination of illiteracy of these areas involved in its wake the expression on the religious level of the values of this family type, through the Réforme (inequality and authority: doctrines of the Predestination and negation of the Free-referee); the absolute nuclear family also was sensitive to the translation on the religeux level of the value of inequality;
the 18th century sees the dechristianization of the areas dominated by the levelling nuclear family (authority of God, as that of the parents was always weak in these areas);
the dechristianization, if it is accompanied by the elimination of illiteracy, involves the ideologisation; this phenomenon leads initially in the north of France at the end of the 18th century and then translated the values of the levelling nuclear family (French revolution); the levelling character and of great freedom of the family structure of the Paris basin would have influenced the Universalisme Revolution (Déclaration of the human rights and the citizen, propagation of the Civil code French in Europe);
the 19th century sees the dechristianization of the Protestant areas of Europe, fruit of the scientific discoveries and mainly of the Darwinisme, which contradicts the Bible, pillar of the Protestantisme;
ideologisation starting from the middle of the 19th century of the Protestant Germany, according to its values of inequality and authority (Social democracy and ethnocentric Nationalism), of the England (British socialism and national Isolationism);
late dechristianization of the catholic areas dominated by the family stock (Belgium, Germany of the South, Ireland, south of the France and north of the Spain) about the middle of the 20th century; meanwhile had developed in these areas a “against-ideology”, the Christian Democrat.

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