While the term ‘Europe’ was used sporadically in ancient and medieval times, it proliferated between the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and gained a prevalence in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries which it did not possess before.
Although studies on the history of the idea of Europe abound, much of the vast body of early modern sources has still been neglected. Assuming that discourses tend to transcend linguistic, historical and generic boundaries, Contesting Europe: Comparative Perspectives on Early Modern Discourses on Europe, 1400–1800 (Brill) has gathered experts from various fields of study who examine vernacular and Latin negotiations of Europe from the late fifteenth to the early eighteenth century.
This multi-angled approach serves to identify similarities and differences in the discourses on Europe within their different national and cultural communities.
Isabella Walser-Bürgler is principal investigator at the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Neo-Latin Studies in Innsbruck (Austria). 
Nicolas Detering is a Junior Professor of German Literature at the University of Bern. 
Dr Alexandra Ortolja-Baird is a visiting researcher at the British Museum and teaches Digital Humanities at University College London.
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