Section Overview |
Altogether, the disruptions |
The disruptions of two total wars, the reduction of barriers to migration within Europe because of economic integration, globalization, and the arrival of new permanent residents from outside Europe changed the everyday lives of Europeans in significant ways. For the first time, more people lived in cities than in rural communities. Economic growth—although interrupted by repeated wars and economic crises—generally increased standards of living, leisure time (despite the growing number of two-career families), educational attainment, and participation in mass cultural entertainments.
The collapse of the birth rate to below replacement levels enhanced the financial well-being of individual families even as it reduced the labor force. To support labor-force participation and encourage families, governments instituted family policies supporting child care and created large-scale guest-worker programs. Europe’s involvement in an increasingly global economy exposed its citizens to new goods, ideas, and practices. Altogether, the disruptions of war and decolonization led to new demographic patterns—a population increase followed by falling birth rates and the immigration of non-Europeans—and to uncertainties about Europeans’ cultural identity.
Even before the collapse of communism and continuing afterward, a variety of groups on both the left and right began campaigns of terror in the name of ethnic or national autonomy, or in radical opposition to free-market ideology. Other groups worked within the democratic system to achieve nationalist and xenophobic goals.
By the 1960s, the rapid industrialization of the previous century had created significant environmental problems. Environmentalists argued that the unfettered free-market economy could lead Europe to ecological disaster, and they challenged the traditional economic and political establishment with demands for sustainable development sensitive to environmental, aesthetic, and moral constraints. At the same time, a generation that had not experienced either economic depression or total war came of age and criticized existing institutions and beliefs while calling for greater political and personal freedom. These demands culminated with the 1968 youth revolts in Europe’s major cities and in challenges to institutional authority structures, especially those of universities. Feminist movements gained increased participation for women in politics, and before the end of the century, several women became heads of government or state. Women’s organizations and movements continued to advocate for other causes, such as equal pay, women’s health care issues, and increased child care subsidies.
During the second half of the century, immigrants from around the globe streamed into Europe, and by the new millennium Europeans found themselves living in multiethnic and multi-religious communities. Immigrants defied traditional expectations of integration and assimilation and expressed social values different from 20th-century Europeans. Many Europeans refused to consider the newcomers as true members of their society. In the early 21st century, Europeans continued to wrestle with issues of social justice and how to define European identity.
Source: https://apcentral.collegeboard.org/pdf/ap-european-history-course-and-exam-description.pdf
The collapse of the birth rate to below replacement levels enhanced the financial well-being of individual families even as it reduced the labor force. To support labor-force participation and encourage families, governments instituted family policies supporting child care and created large-scale guest-worker programs. Europe’s involvement in an increasingly global economy exposed its citizens to new goods, ideas, and practices. Altogether, the disruptions of war and decolonization led to new demographic patterns—a population increase followed by falling birth rates and the immigration of non-Europeans—and to uncertainties about Europeans’ cultural identity.
Even before the collapse of communism and continuing afterward, a variety of groups on both the left and right began campaigns of terror in the name of ethnic or national autonomy, or in radical opposition to free-market ideology. Other groups worked within the democratic system to achieve nationalist and xenophobic goals.
By the 1960s, the rapid industrialization of the previous century had created significant environmental problems. Environmentalists argued that the unfettered free-market economy could lead Europe to ecological disaster, and they challenged the traditional economic and political establishment with demands for sustainable development sensitive to environmental, aesthetic, and moral constraints. At the same time, a generation that had not experienced either economic depression or total war came of age and criticized existing institutions and beliefs while calling for greater political and personal freedom. These demands culminated with the 1968 youth revolts in Europe’s major cities and in challenges to institutional authority structures, especially those of universities. Feminist movements gained increased participation for women in politics, and before the end of the century, several women became heads of government or state. Women’s organizations and movements continued to advocate for other causes, such as equal pay, women’s health care issues, and increased child care subsidies.
During the second half of the century, immigrants from around the globe streamed into Europe, and by the new millennium Europeans found themselves living in multiethnic and multi-religious communities. Immigrants defied traditional expectations of integration and assimilation and expressed social values different from 20th-century Europeans. Many Europeans refused to consider the newcomers as true members of their society. In the early 21st century, Europeans continued to wrestle with issues of social justice and how to define European identity.
Source: https://apcentral.collegeboard.org/pdf/ap-european-history-course-and-exam-description.pdf
Demographic Disasters
|
Hospital beds during the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic
World War I graves
|
High Speed
1968
1968 was a year of high-profile clashes between youth reformers and authorities in both the Western and Eastern blocs.
|
Text: "VOTE ALWAYS/I WILL DO THE REST" A cartoon profile of the paternalistic Charles de Gaulle pats France on the head.
Text: "NOT THAT! BUT THE REFORMS OF DE GAULLE"
|
Women's Rights
|
Mary Robinson was the very popular President of Ireland during the 1990s.
|
American comedian Conan O'Brien had a long running gag about his physical similarity to Finnish President Tarja Halonen and visited her when he did his show from Finland.
Green Parties
LGBT Rights
|
62% of Irish voters said yes to legalize same-sex marriage in a 2015 national referendum.
|
Imprisonment of gay rights activists in gay concentration camps in Chechnya in 2017 drew worldwide protests.
Terrorism
The 1972 massacre of Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics and the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 began the age of modern terrorism in Europe.
|
|
Al-Qaeda inspired bombings were carried out in Madrid and London during the early 2000s.
|
In 2011 Norwegian ultra-nationalist anti-immigrant right-wing terrorist Anders Breivik killed 77, mostly teenagers at a left-wing political youth retreat.
|
Paris suffered two devastating Islamic State inspired attacks in 2015. A mass shooting at the headquarters of Charlie Hebdo, a satirical magazine that had published offensive cartoons of Muhammad, was followed by terror attacks across the city that killed 130.
|
23 were killed and over 500 injured by Islamist terror attack in Manchester, England during an American pop-singer Ariana Grande concert in 2017.
|
Anti-Immigrant Movements
|
British anti-immigrant nationalist Enoch Powell gave his notorious 1968 Rivers of Blood speech during the debate over a race relations bill.
France's large Muslim population, largely descended from France's former North African colonies, has clashed with French police and with French nationalists who argue that Islamic values are contradictory to traditional French liberal and Christian values. French National Front leader Marine Le Pen won over 1/3 of the electorate in the 2017 French national election.
|
Conflicts in African and the Middle East led to a humanitarian disaster as a flood of immigrants crossed the Mediterranean into Europe during the 2015 Refugee Crisis.
|
Critics of the right-wing Alternative for Germany have accused the Islamophobic organization of neo-Nazism.
|