Peter Rietbergen is Emeritus Professor of Cultural History at Radboud University, Nijmegen, in the Netherlands. He is author of 15 monographs, including Europe's India (2007); Rome and the World - the World in Rome: The Politics of International Culture, 1861-2011 (2012); and the best-selling Short History of the Netherlands (1993, and ten revised editions till 2018), which has also been translated into Dutch, German and Japanese.

Prologue: Europe - a present with a past Part 1: Continuity and change: New ways of surviving 1. Before 'Europe': Towards an agricultural and sedentary society 2. Rome and its empire: The effects and limits of cultural integration 3. An empire lost - an empire won? Christianity and the Roman Empire Part 2: Continuity and change: New forms of belief 4. Towards one religion for all 5. Three worlds around the Inner Sea: Orthodox Christendom, Islam and Catholic Christendom 6. One world, many traditions: Elite culture and popular cultures: cosmopolitan norms and regional variations Interlude: the worlds of Europe, c.1400-1800 Part 3: Continuity and change: New ways of looking at man and the world 7. A new society: Europe's changing views of man 8. A new society: Europe as a wider world 9. A new society: Europe and the wider world since the fifteenth century 10. A new society: Migration, travel and the diffusion and integration of culture in Europe 11. A new society: The 'Republic of Letters' as a virtual and virtuous world against a divided world 12. A new society: From Humanism to the Enlightenment Part 4: Continuity and change: New forms of consumption and communication [...]ope's revolutions: Freedom and consumption for all? 14. Progress and its discontents: Nationalism, economic growth and the question of cultural certainties [...]ope and the other worlds 16. The 'decline of the occident' - the loss of a dream? From the mid-nineteenth to the early twentieth century 17. From a dream shattered to a dream revived? Epilogue: Europe - a present with a past, a present with future?