5000 concepts for Europe: update 2019/03/04
About one year ago, I launched the idea of a book listing the “5000 concepts that EVERY European should know”…
In the last six months, for both personal and professional reason, I have not had any time to devote to this project. Today, I finally downloaded and reformatted all the suggestions received so far, and this (especially with the European Elections coming in less than 3 months) is the very interesting result.
Before checking the suggestions…
- please share the invitation to suggest “5000 concepts that every European should know” as much as you can. The more DIFFERENT suggestions I receive, the better, and more useful the book will be!
- please do it NOW. See the EU elections, again. A book like this is always useful, but having a first edition before the elections may be particularly useful
- to send your own suggestions, check the bottom of this page
- you may speed up the progress of this project by by sending money via Paypal donations to mfioretti@nexaima.net for “Donation for: 5000 concepts for Europe”. To know why, and how to otherwise support this project, please read its FAQ
As of today, the most voted suggestions for 5000 Concepts for Europe are…
almost one thousand! The full list, as of today, is downloadable in plain text format here. These are the most voted concepts:
- 8 Votes: Enlightenment
- 7 Votes: Charles De Gaulle
- 6 Votes:
- Council Of Europe
- Leonardo Da Vinci
- Reformation
- Romani People
- 5 Votes:
- Circular Economy
- French Revolution
- Gdpr (General Data Protection Regulation)
- Internet Of Things
- Iron Curtain
- Marxism
- Net Neutrality
- 4 Votes:
- Brexit
- Digital Single Market
- European Commission
- Feminism
- Gender Parity
- If This Is A Man (Novel)
- Indoeuropeans
- Isaac Newton
- Lisbon Treaty
- Maastricht Treaty
- Margaret Thatcher
- Numeracy
- Open Hardware
- Perestrojka
- Privacy
- Religious Freedom
- Scouting
- Warsaw Pact
- World War II
- Yalta Conference
Other interesting entries include…
Quotes about Europe, e.g.:
- “European Identity, It Seems, Is Only Perceived By Educated People. And That Is Sad, But It Is A Start.” ― Umberto Eco
- “Europe Will Not Be Made All At Once, Or According To A Single Plan. It Will Be Built Through Concrete Achievements Which First Create A De Facto Solidarity” - Robert Schuman
but also EU agencies of all sorts, from EMA to Frontex, politicians and political parties (so far, more on the right than on the left “front”), crucial battles and treaties in european history, non-european events or groups from Boko Haram to Bretton Woods, novels, scientific laws… again, please download the full list and then add yourself whatever you think is missing, as explained below.
The best way to contribute YOUR suggestions:
First of all, remember that you can do as many suggestions you want, including concepts already present in this list! Personally, I suggest to do it as follows. You will be surprised to see how quick (and fun!!) it can be:
- consider all the GENERAL topics you care about and/or know well (e.g.: modern art, Danish politics, geography, sci-fi, medioeval history, software, whatever, really…)
- for each topic, figure out what you consider the most important concepts in that field
- enter all those concepts in the “5000 Concepts for Europe” form. If you thought of more than 5 concepts, just reload the form until you are done
- repeat for the next topic
Who writes this, why, and how to help
I am Marco Fioretti, tech writer and aspiring polymath doing human-digital research and popularization.
I do it because YOUR civil rights and the quality of YOUR life depend every year more on how software is used AROUND you.
To this end, I have already shared more than a million words on this blog, without any paywall or user tracking, and am sharing the next million through a newsletter, also without any paywall.
The more direct support I get, the more I can continue to inform for free parents, teachers, decision makers, and everybody else who should know more stuff like this. You can support me with paid subscriptions to my newsletter, donations via PayPal (mfioretti@nexaima.net) or LiberaPay, or in any of the other ways listed here.THANKS for your support!