Conclusion

This chapter discusses political fragmentation that is often identified as the feature that differentiated Europe from other regions of the globe, from the fall of Rome to the twenty-first century. Researchers have not fully thought through the nature and consequences of stable diversity. It focuses on the Darwinian mechanisms of interstate competition and have been less sensitive to the capacity of fragmented but stable societies to form dynamic learning communities. The most important feature of a fragmented Europe, from this perspective, was not the spur to innovation of interstate competition that forms the focus of the research on the fiscal military state or its variant, the development state. The incentives to cooperation incubated in local, provincial contexts where individuals and groups were in constant contact were, if anything, even more important in explaining successful adaptation to change. The provinces of Europe, in a best-case scenario, could create stable contexts for cooperation and innovation.