If there were no Europe, would it be absolutely necessary to invent it, especially over and over? Delanty (cultural history, U. College-Cork, Ireland and U. of Hanover) shows that people have been doing exactly that since the decline of classical Greek civilization, influenced by ideas about medieval Christianity, the Enlightenment, and 19th-century nationalism. He argues that the notion of European unity has always been but a thin cover for the politics of division and exclusion, and that the idea must be judged by how it treats its minorities rather than some ambivalent measure of unity. Annotation copyright Book News, Inc. Portland, Or.