This is the first part of a two-semester course which provides students with the necessary initial background knowledge of Europe as a whole. It seeks to stimulate the students’ interest by looking at European history through the particular prism of the shifting balance between unity and diversity, concentrating on particular turning points. It introduces students to the various definitions of “Europe” and Europe’s historical roots in the antique Mediterranean civilizations. The synthesis of the Greco-Roman and Christian with the Germanic heritages in the Middle Ages and the subsequent Renaissance laid the foundations for the culturally multi-faceted modern European societies, which nonetheless share a common tradition in thought and action.