Western Europe
Core of Western Civilization; post-1949 NATO and EEC zone
Also known as: Western Europe
The core of Western Civilization and, after 1949, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and EEC zone. The senior partner of the Anglo-American Atlantic system after 1945 (T&H 38).
Quigley's Framing
Western Europe is, in The Evolution of Civilizations, the home territory of Western Civilization — the band from the British Isles through France, the Low Countries, western Germany, Italy, and Iberia that constituted the civilization's expanding core from roughly the year 1000 to the early twentieth century. T&H's twentieth-century chapters track the region's near-destruction in the two World Wars and its post-war reconstruction within the Anglo-American Atlantic architecture.
Strategic Role
The post-1945 Western Europe is a Quigley success story: the Marshall Plan, North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the European Coal and Steel Community, the European Economic Community, and the Bretton Woods financial framework together produced a generation of unprecedented growth and stability. Quigley reads the project as the deliberate work of the Anglo-American policy elite — particularly figures associated with the Council on Foreign Relations and the Royal Institute of International Affairs — and as the principal success of the Atlantic-community vision pursued since the Round Table years.
Cited in
- tragedy-and-hope · p. 38 Quigley
Western Europe — the core of Western Civilization, the post-1949 NATO and EEC zone.
- tragedy-and-hope · p. 1294 Quigley
The post-1945 Western European reconstruction is the principal success of the Atlantic-community vision pursued since the Round Table years.