The Temptation of Homo Europaeus

• Published in support of Timișoara European Capital of Culture 2023
• A newly illustrated and revised edition of Victor Neumann’s ground-breaking study into the development of Eastern European thought
• Given new relevance by the current debate surrounding European identity

‘The author distances himself from the national historiographies of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, according to which history is a teleological process that aims to form the nation but ignores any other trends. On the other hand, Neumann does not want modernity to be understood as a symbol of global delimitation. Homo Europaeus in the modern version is the impetus for free thinking, the development of human skills and a sense of balance in the design of common goals.’
– Professor Werner Mueller-Pelzer, Fachhochschule Dortmund, University of Applied Sciences and Arts

The Renaissance, the Reformation, the Enlightenment – these seismic developments in Western thought were not confined to Italy and her near neighbours, but were paralleled across the vast and culturally diverse territory stretching from Vienna to Constantinople. Drawing on an array of sources, this ground-breaking study charts the development of Eastern European thought and its literary and artistic expression from the Middle Ages to the modern age. First published to great acclaim in Romania in 1991, this newly revised, updated and illustrated edition will be published as Timișoara prepares to receive visitors from across the world as European Capital of Culture in 2023, and at a time when the question of what it means to be European is being debated more than ever.

Victor Neumann is a Romanian historian, political analyst, Professor of Romanian and European Intellectual History at the Bucharest National University of Arts and Senior Researcher at the Romanian Academy of Sciences. He is a well-known specialist in the recent cultural and intellectual histories of Eastern and Central Europe.