Culture of Europe

The culture of Europe is diverse, and rooted in its art, architecture, traditions, cuisines, music, folklore, embroidery, film, literature, economics, philosophy and religious customs. There were a great number of perspectives which can be taken on the subject; it is impossible to form a single, all-embracing conception of European culture. Nonetheless, there are core elements which are generally agreed upon as forming the cultural foundation of modern Europe. One list of these elements given by K. Bochmann includes: A common cultural and spiritual heritage derived from Greco-Roman antiquity, Christianity, Judaism, the Renaissance, and its Humanism, the political thinking of the Enlightenment, and the French Revolution, and the developments of Modernity, including all types of socialism; A rich and dynamic material culture that has been extended to the other continents as the result of industrialization and colonialism during the "Great Divergence"; A specific conception of the individual expressed by the existence of, and respect for, a legality that guarantees human rights and the liberty of the individual; A plurality of states with different political orders, which are feeding each other with new ideas; Respect for peoples, states, and nations outside Europe. Berting says that these points fit with "Europe's most positive realizations". The concept of European culture is arguably linked to the classical definition of the Western world. In this definition, Western culture is the set of literary, scientific, political, artistic, and philosophical principles which set it apart from other civilizations. Much of this set of traditions and knowledge is collected in the Western canon. The term has come to apply to countries whose history has been strongly marked by European immigration or settlement during the 18th and 19th centuries, such as the Americas, and Australasia, and is not restricted to Europe.