We live in an age where the extinction of languages has become a topic of discussion in many different circles. Opinions on whether the process should be stopped or considered profitable differ widely even in the field of linguistics, let alone in the public domain. A rational attitude presupposes the recognition that a language may constitute a value for some and that value judgements are controlled by more or less outspoken and divergent interests. In the case of a language, interest is taken in its maintenance (or suppression) at all the levels from the individual via the speech community and the scientific community up to mankind. These interests have to be made explicit before the value of a language can be assessed. Ultimately, such an evaluation must even be confronted with the costs that arise in the maintenance of a minority language or in the revitalization of a dying language.

This Focus is the outcome of a Symposium planned in 2004 by Theo D'haen and Karl Fuchs and held in association with the Annual Meeting of the Academia Europaea in September 2005 in Potsdam, 250 years after the Great Earthquake of 1755.

That ‘Great Event’ was not only recorded as a physical disaster, but it had a profound effect on life in Europe not directly concerned with the local devastation. In the Focus you will find recorded the impression it made on Voltaire and the influence it had on the development of Kant's thinking, on Wesley's sermons and even on poetry in distant Holland.

What could not be foreseen was how timely this Focus would be, since 2004–5 was a period of great disasters due to tsunamis in Sumatra and Mumbai, a major earthquake in Kashmir-Pakistan, and the hurricane flooding in New Orleans and other parts of the American Gulf coast.

The accusations of incompetence of local authorities, central government and politicians follow the same pattern as 250 years ago! What is rather different is the perceived role of the Almighty; but, after all, the 1755 episode occurred on All Saints Day, a Sunday when the many who were in church at the time of the eruption, were among the most prominent casualties.

What is quite different is the realization due to the insight of Alfred Wegener, that the earth's crust is not continuous, but split into plates, some twelve in number, that are unstable where their edges are in contact – the areas of earthquakes.

The Lisbon earthquake is famous for its central role in the 18th century ‘quarrel of Optimism’. The accounts of the disaster by some witnesses are presented and the contributions that the earthquake inspired to many European authors, less well-known than Voltaire, in the domains of science, literature, religion and philosophy, are summarily reviewed. The paper emphasizes the repercussions the earthquake had in Germany, quite remote from the disaster area, but intellectually much alive, at the time of Frederic II.

Great earthquakes and tsunami can have a tremendous societal impact. The Lisbon earthquake and tsunami of 1755 caused tens of thousands of deaths in Portugal, Spain and NW Morocco. Felt as far as Hamburg and the Azores islands, its magnitude is estimated to be 8.5–9. However, because of the complex tectonics in Southern Iberia, the fault that produced the earthquake has not yet been clearly identified. Recently acquired data from the Gulf of Cadiz area (tomography, seismic profiles, high-resolution bathymetry, sampled active mud volcanoes) provide strong evidence for an active east dipping subduction zone beneath Gibraltar. Eleven out of 12 of the strongest earthquakes (M>8.5) of the past 100 years occurred along subduction zone megathrusts (including the December 2004 and March 2005 Sumatra earthquakes). Thus, it appears likely that the 1755 earthquake and tsunami were generated in a similar fashion, along the shallow east-dipping subduction fault plane. This implies that the Cadiz subduction zone is locked (like the Cascadia and Nankai/Japan subduction zones), with great earthquakes occurring over long return periods. Indeed, the regional paleoseismic record (contained in deep-water turbidites and shallow lagoon deposits) suggests great earthquakes off South West Iberia every 1500–2000 years. Tsunami deposits indicate an earlier great earthquake struck SW Iberia around 200 BC, as noted by Roman records from Cadiz. A written record of even older events may also exist. According to Plato's dialogues The Critias and The Timaeus, Atlantis was destroyed by ‘strong earthquakes and floods … in a single day and night’ at a date given as 11,600 BP. A 1 m thick turbidite deposit, containing coarse grained sediments from underwater avalanches, has been dated at 12,000 BP and may correspond to the destructive earthquake and tsunami described by Plato. The effects on a paleo-island (Spartel) in the straits of Gibraltar would have been devastating, if inhabited, and may have formed the basis for the Atlantis legend.

The 1755 Lisbon earthquake and tsunami had one of the highest magnitudes in the history of Europe. The source mechanism requires generation at a subduction zone. Intensity distribution and tsunami modelling excludes the Gorringe Bank as a source area and suggests generation by the incipient convergence of the Atlantic with the Southwest Iberia and Morocco margin rather than at the less active Gulf of Cadiz Accretionary Prism. The comparison with the 2004 Sumatra earthquake and tsunami supports this interpretation. A tsunami warning alert system is urgent for the Atlantic.

Two major earthquakes ‘which shook the world’, that of Lisbon of 1755 and that of Aceh/Sumatra of 2004, are compared. Both were catastrophic earthquakes with nearly identical magnitude M≈9 and accompanying destructive tsunamis. They are paradigms for Low Probability Extreme Events (LPEEs) and for the reaction of the societies in which they occurred, although 250 years apart. Modern seismology developed from its birth as disaster management following the Lisbon quake to a mature science, which however, still remains under the obligation to improve its role in enhancing society's preparedness for such catastrophes. The catastrophe of hurricane Katrina, which was predicted, showed that the realm of societal responsibility extends beyond that of scientific technical competence.

The damage to human life, property, and infrastructure by natural disasters has been growing exponentially for the past 40 years. The driving force of this development is the increase in exposure and vulnerability of human society to the impacts of disasters. On the other hand, significant local, regional and global capacities for disaster reduction have been built since the beginning of the UN International Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction in 1990. It remains unclear how the race between mitigation efforts and expanding disaster potential will develop in the coming years. This is a report on the risk potential of megacities and the strategies to reduce such risk, drawing on the experience of 8 years work in the Earthquakes and Megacities Initiative (www.earthquakesandmegacities.org/). The crucial role of science in this process will be discussed.

This article looks at the history of European culture from three angles, those of European uniqueness, European variety and European consciousness. The first section discusses the question of whether the fundamental unit of study, for cultural as well as economic historians, is not Eurasia. The second section is concerned with cultural divisions within Europe, with Europes in the plural. It asks whether it is more illuminating to distinguish two Europes (like Leopold von Ranke), or three (like Jenő Szűcs), or even five (like Hugo Hassinger), and examine both centripetal and centrifugal forces in early modern history. The final section deals with the history of the idea of Europe, or more exactly with the rise of consciousness of being European, as it is revealed in early modern histories, geographies, journals and newspapers.

The process of European integration, the complexity of the problems involved and even the resistance it raises, astonishes observers in other parts of the world, especially in large states that have a long history of centralized government behind them. Is there really so little unity in Europe? If so, how can this be explained? Has European diversity generated only problems or has it, in fact, created new and unique opportunities? Is there a chance that growing concerns at EU-level about the cultural dimensions of European citizenship could, in fact, consolidate a sense of community? And, finally, how can historians contribute to the creation of a common European identity, if this is so weakly developed?

Any definition of Central Europe based on geographical and/or historical facts causes difficulties. The line dividing Europe during the Cold War has a very limited use because it does not take into account Central Europe as a special part of the continent. Historians such as Geoffrey Barraclough, Hugh Seton-Watson and Oskar Halecki discussed the idea of a separate identity of Central Europe during the Cold War. Especially after the fall of the Berlin Wall, this discussion was re-opened. From a historian's point of view, the most important contributions came from Piotr Wandycz and Jenő Szűcs. An imaginary centre of Europe can only be found in the continent's common history.

There is a belief, rather widespread in English-speaking countries, that the eastern half of Europe is inhabited by a number of endlessly quarrelling small nations whose conflicts keep endangering the quiet and comfort of Anglophones. (Hugh Seton-Watson)

(Translation: Stefan Menhofer, 2004, revised by Peter Burke, 2005)

The question: ‘How to write the history of Europe?’ can only be answered in context. The reply depends on what sort of readership one wants to write for, what ideas one entertains about tasks of exploring and conveying historical studies, how one views the relation of European history to other forms of historiography. The following reflections seek to take up and connect with one another two strands of historiographical discussion which are surprisingly disconnected, namely the discussions about concepts of European history and of global history. Suggestions for a European history in a global context, such as are presented here under the heading ‘exceptionalism’, are based not only on theoretical reflections but also on several attempts to put them into practice over the past few years.

The Nordic or Scandinavian countries represent variations on general European patterns of state and nation-building and political culture. Denmark and Sweden rank among the oldest and most typical of nation-states together with France, Britain and Spain and should be studied with the same questions in mind. Today, however, a sort of trans-state common Nordic identity coexists with independent national identifications among the Scandinavians. Nordic unity is regarded as a viable alternative to European culture and integration by large numbers of the populations. There has never existed a ‘Scandinavian model’ worthy of the name ‘model’. Because of a series of changes in great power politics in the 18th and 19th centuries, the major conflicts in Europe were relocated away from Northern Europe. This resulted in a virtual ‘neutralization’ of the Scandinavian countries north of the Baltic Sea. Today, the much promoted ‘Nordic identity’ reveals itself only through the nation-states. The ‘Association for Nordic Unity’ (Foreningerne Norden) was set up in 1919 only after all five Nordic countries had achieved independent nationhood: Norway in 1905, Finland in 1917, and Iceland in 1918 (the latter only as home rule to be followed by independence in 1944). The very different roads to independent nationhood among the Nordic countries and the idea of a common Nordic identity can be traced back to its beginnings in the 19th century