1. Europe has made substantial moves toward economic integration, but its failure to react effectively to the savage turmoil accompanying the breakup of Yugoslavia demonstrates the depth of its political divisions.

2. Europe's postindustrial society remains wealthy and advanced. Increased independence from the superpowers, movements toward unity, and searches for political alternatives evidence continued European vitality.

3. Eastern Europe experienced upheaval and transformation with the fall of communism. Western Europe has maintained a fundamental stability of democratic institutions, though problems of economic dislocation, energy shortage, and terrorism continue to frustrate Europeans.

4. The fall of Communist regimes in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union marked the end of the Cold War and the end of an era.

5. A burst of creativity and new ideas such as postmodernism have marked cultural and intellectual life in recent decades.