Chapter 2
What innovations in business and technology happened in Europe during the 15th and 16th centuries? How did business and technological advances build on each other to increase the power of Europe on the world stage?
In the 15th and 16th centuries, a series of innovations in business and technology contributed to the consolidation of Europe's new merchant capitalist economy. These included several key innovations in the organization of business and finance: banking, loan systems, credit transfers, company partnerships, shares in stock, speculation in commodity futures, commercial insurance, and courier/news services.
Your authors identify the development of "merchant capitalism" as a key factor in the rise of Europe as a major world region. Explain what merchant capitalism is, and why it was so significant.
Merchant capitalism - refers to the earliest phase in the development of capitalism as an economic and social system, when the key entrepreneurs were merchant traders and merchant bankers; the immensely complex trading system that soon came to span based on long-standing trading patterns developed from the 12th century.
How have each of these impacted Europe's regional development: - Europe's location relative to the other major regions of the world. - Europe's peninsular nature. - Europe's (sea and) river system.
1. As a world region, Europe is situations between the Americas, Africa, and the Middle East. 2. The region consists mainly of a collection for peninsulas and islands at the western extremity of the great Eurasian landmass. The largest of the European peninsulas is the Scandinavian Peninsula, the prominent western mountains of which separate Atlantic-oriented Norway from continental-oriented Sweden. 3. The overall effect is that tongues of shallow seas penetrate deep into European landmass. This characteristic was especially important in the premodern period, when the only means of transporting goods were sailing vessels and wagons. Europe's navigable rivers also shaped the human geography of the region. Namely the Danube, the Dneiper, the Elbe, the Rhine, the Seine, and the Thames.
How does the climate in Eastern Europe (in places like Warsaw) differ from the climate in Western Europe (in places like London)? Why?
Eastern Europe, farther from the moderating effects of the oceans, has colder and drier conditions associated with the continental midlatitude climate type. Southern Europe, along the shores of the Mediterranean, has drier conditions and winter rains associated with a Mediterranean climate type.
What environmental problems developed as a result of Europe's industrialization and urbanization?
Mining - especially coal mining - created derelict landscapes of soil heaps; urbanization encroached on rural landscapes and generated unprecedented amounts and concentrations of human, domestic, and industrial waste,; and manufacturing, unregulated at first, resulted in extremely unhealthy levels of air pollution (i.e. acid rain).
What is distinctive about the plants that live in Mediterranean climates? Explain.
Delicate plants cannot survive. The Mediterranean climate precludes all plant species that cannot tolerate the range of conditions - cold as well as heat and drought as well as wet. The result is a distinctive landscape of dry terrain dotted with cypress tress, holm oaks, cork oaks, parasol pines, and eucalyptus trees. These same conditions make agriculture challenging. The crops that prosper best include olives, figs, almonds, vines, oranges, lemons, wheat, and barely. Irrigation is often necessary, and in some localities it sustains high yields of fruit, vegetables, and rice.
Has Europe's climate warming been greater than, about the same as, or less than the global average?
Europe has warmed significantly more than the global average: The average temperature from the European land area between 2004 and 2013 was 0.75 degrees Celsius to 0.81 degrees Celsius water than the preindustrial average; most of these years were among the warmest since 1850.
A new surge of population growth took place in Europe after the 16th century. How did the Netherlands respond to this growing population and need for more agricultural land? What were the negative effects of this action?
IN the Netherlands, a steadily growing population and the consequent requirement for more agricultural land led to increased efforts to reclaim land from the sea and to drain coastal marshlands. Hundreds of small coasts barrier islands were slowly joined into larger units, and sea defense walls were constructed to protect low-lying land. The land was drained by windmill-powered water pumps, and the excess water was carried off into a network of drainage ditches and canals.
Europe experienced significant population growth in the 12th and 13th centuries which was accompanied by cleaning and drainage of land for new settlements. What did this activity stop in about the year 1300 C.E.?
One factor was the so-called Little Ice Age, a period of cooler climate that began around 1300 that significantly reduced the growing season - perhaps by as much as five weeks. Another factor was the catastrophic loss of population during the period of the Black Death (1347-1351).
One interesting pattern in Europe is the dominance of wine consumption in southern Europe and the dominance of beer and liquor consumption in northern Europe. Explain why this pattern exists (p. 58).
The Little Ice Age was responsible for one of the most cultural contrasts within Europe: the dominance of wine consumption in southern Europe and beer and liquor consumption in northern Europe. Why? Viticulture - the cultivation of grape vines for winemaking - retreated to Mediterranean Europe, leaving northerners to satisfy their need for alcohol with grain-based beverages, namely beer and spirits.
Explain the types of city and infrastructure development associated with each of these civilizations.
Romans - It is possible to glimpse remnant to defensive city walls, paved streets, aqueducts, viaducts, areas, sewage systems, baths, and public buildings. In the modern countryside, the legacy of the Roman Empire is represented by arrow-straight roads, built by Roman engineers and maintained and improved by successive generations.
The landscapes of Europe have been affected dramatically by human activity. Explain the degree of deforestation that has taken place in Europe. When and why did this happen?
Temperate forests originally covered about 95% of Europe, with a natural ecosystem dominated by oak, together with elm, beech, and linden (lime). By the end of the medieval period, Europe's forest cover had been reduced to about 20% of what it was at its peak, and today it is around 5%. Between 1000 C.E. and 1300 C.E., a period of warmer climate, together with advances in agricultural knowledge and practices, led to a significant transformation of the European landscape. By about 1200 C.E., most the best soils of Western Europe had been cleared of forest . . .
What environmental management techniques were first introduced in Europe by the Romans?
The Romans were among the first to demonstrate the effectiveness of drainage schemes by reclaiming parts of Italy and northwestern Europe. - Centuriation: land was subdivided into a checkerboard pattern of rectilinear fields (i.e. Po Valley). Another important legacy of the Romans is the doctrine of public trust, which asserts public rights in navigable waters, fisheries, and tidelands.
Why is there often confusion (and sometimes disagreement) about where Europe's eastern boundary lies? Explain.
The eastern edge of Europe merges into the vastness of Asia and is less easily defined. Geographers sometimes use the mountain ranges of the Urals to mark the boundary between Europe and Asia, but the most significant factors separating Europe from Asia are human and relate to ethnicity, language, and a common set of ethical values that stem from Roman Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox forms of Christianity. As a result, the eastern boundary of Europe is often demarcated through political and administrative boundaries, rather than physical features.
When did the Roman Empire decline? Explain the nature of the feudal system that took the place of the empire after its decline.
The decline of the Roman Empire, beginning in the 4th century C.E., was accompanied by a long period of rural reorganization and consolidation under feudal systems, a period often characterized as uneventful and stagnant. Feudal systems were forms of economic organization where wealth was appropriated though a hierarchy of social ranks by means of institutionalized political or religious coercion; almost wholly agricultural.
The first civilizations in Europe associated with the Greeks and Romans. Know the general time frames associated with each of these civilizations.
The foundations of Europe's human geography were laid by the Greek and Roman empires. Beginning in about 750 B.C.E., the ancient Greeks developed a series of fortified city-states (politically independent cities, called poleis) along the Mediterranean coast, and by about 550 B.C.E. there were about 250 of these training colonies, some of which subsequently grew into thriving cities (e.g. Athens and Corinth), whereas others remain as isolated ruins or archaeological sites.
Explain why much of Europe has milder, warmer climates than places of similar latitude in North America.
The seas that surround Europe strongly influence the region's climate. The seas provide a warming effect in the winter and a cooling effect in summer. Europe's arrangement of islands and peninsulas contribute to an overall climate that does not have great seasonal extremes of heat and cold. The moderating effect is intensified by the North Atlantic Drift, which carries great quantities of warm water from the tropical Gulf Stream as far as the United Kingdom.
Today, Europe has moved toward increasingly "green" policies. Describe how Freiburg, Germany is an example of this movement (p. 60-61).
"Freiburg's traffic and transportation policies encourage walking, cycling, and public transport." To reach its goal of reducing carbon emissions by 40% by the year 2030, Freiburg employs a unique mixture of environmental, economic, and social policies. The city's energy policy encourages the use of renewable resources such as solar, wind, and biomass and sets strict standards for the use of energy in new housing developments.
Europe is divided into four broad physiographic regions (physical landscapes): Northwestern Uplands, Alpine System, Central Plateaus and North European Lowlands. Describe the basic characteristics of each of these and also describe which areas of Europe are within each of these physiographic regions.
Northwestern Uplands - composed of the most ancient rocks in Europe, the product of the Caledonian mountain-building episode about 400 million years ago. Included in this region are the mountains of Norway and Scotland and the uplands (high, hilly land) of Iceland, Ireland, and Wales. Alpine Europe - The Alpine System occupies a vast area of Europe, stretching eastward for nearly 1,290 kilometers (about 800 miles) across the southern part of Europe from the Pyrenees, which mark the border between Spain and France, through the Alps and the Dolomites and on to the Carpathians, the Dynamic Alps, and some ranges in the Balkan Peninsula. The Apennines of Italy and the Pindus Mountains of Greece are also part of the Alpine System. The Alpine System is the product of the most recent of Europe's mountain-building episodes, which occurred about 50 million years ago. Its relative youth explains the sharpness of the mountains and the boldness of their peaks. The Alpine landscape is characterized by jagged mountains with high, pyramidal peaks and deeply glaciated valleys. Central Plateaus - Between the Alpine System and the Northwestern Uplands are the landscapes of the Central Plateaus and the North European Lowlands. The Central Plateaus are formed from 250- to 300- million-year-old rocks that have been eroded down to broad tracts of uplands. Beneath the frost-clad slopes and fertile valleys of these plateaus lie many of Europe's major coalfields. The Central Plateau landscape is characterized by rolling hills, steep slops and dipping vales, and deeply carved river valleys (i.e. central Spain, France, southwestern Germany). North European Lowlands - sweep in a broad crescent from southern France, through Belgium, the Netherlands, and southeastern England into northern Germany, Denmark, and the southern tip of Sweden. Continuing eastward, they broaden into the immense European plain that extends through Poland and Czech, all the way into Russia. Coal is found in quantity under the lowlands of England, France, Germany, and Poland and in smaller deposits in Belgium and the Netherlands, and northern Germany. Nearly all of this area lies below 200 meters (656 feet) in elevation, and the topography everywhere is flat or gently undulating. As a result, the region has been particularly attractive to farming and settlement. The fertility of the soil varies, however, so that settlement patterns are uneven, and agriculture is finely turned to the limits and opportunities of local soils, landscapes, and climate.
Explain how the ETS system is intended to reduce the amount of CO2 that is released in the atmosphere. Has it been successful?
The Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) allows energy-intensive facilities (e.g.e power generation plants and iron and steel, glass, and cement factories) to buy and sell permits that allow them to emit CO2 into the atmosphere, attempting to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases. The system has had mixed success in reducing the total amount of CO2 released into the atmosphere but can probably be counted as successful in limiting the rate of growth in CO2 emissions.