EUROPE, JAMES REESE

born Feb. 22, 1881, Mobile, Ala., U.S. died May 9/10, 1919, Boston, Mass. Europe, 1917 byname Jim American bandleader, arranger, composer, a major figure in the transition from ragtime to jazz. Europe studied piano and violin in his youth and about 1904 settled in New York City, where he directed musical comedies and, in 1910, he helped organize the Clef Club, a union of African-American musicians. The 125-member Clef Club orchestra that he conducted at Carnegie Hall featured an extraordinary instrumentation, including 47 mandolins and bandores and 27 harp-guitars. Europe's Society Orchestra was probably the first African-American band to record, as early as 1913, when it offered fast versions of ragtime works, typically in 2/4 metre, with urgent rhythmic momentum. His band also regularly accompanied the popular white dance team of Irene and Vernon Castle, who popularized the fox-trot and a dance in 5/4 metre, to scores by Europe and his collaborator, Ford Dabney. During World War I Europe led the all-black 369th Infantry band, which toured France; it was noted for its syncopations and expressive colours. The band was nicknamed the Hell Fighters and was making a triumphal postwar tour of the United States when Europe was killed by one of his musicians. The economy Europe was the first of the major world regions to develop a modern economy based on commercial agriculture and industrial development. Its successful modernization can be traced to the continent's rich endowment of economic resources, its history of innovations, the evolution of a skilled and educated labour force, and the interconnectedness of all its partsboth naturally existing and manmadewhich facilitated the easy movement of massive quantities of raw materials and finished goods and the communication of ideas. Europe's economic modernization began with a marked improvement in agricultural output in the 17th century, particularly in England. The traditional method of cultivation involved periodically allowing land to remain fallow; this gave way to continuous cropping on fields that were fertilized with manure from animals raised as food for rapidly expanding urban markets. Greater wealth was accumulated by landowners at the same time that fewer farmhands were needed to work the land. The accumulated capital and abundant cheap labour created by this revolution in agriculture fueled the development of the Industrial Revolution in the 18th century. The revolution began in northern England in the 1730s with the development of water-driven machinery to spin and weave wool and cotton. By mid-century James Watt had developed a practical steam engine that emancipated machinery from sites adjacent to waterfalls and rapids. Britain had been practically deforested by this time, and the incessant demand for more fuel to run the engines led to the exploitation of coal as a major industry. Industries were built on the coalfields to minimize the cost of transporting coal over long distances. The increasingly surplus rural population flocked to the new manufacturing areas. Canals and other improvements in the transportation infrastructure were made in these regions, which made them attractive to other industries that were not necessarily dependent on coal and thus prompted development in adjacent regions. Industrialization outside of England began in the mid-19th century in Belgium and northeastern France and spread to Germany, The Netherlands, southern Scandinavia, and other areas in conjunction with the construction of railways. By the 1870s the governments of the European nations had recognized the vital importance of factory production and had taken steps to encourage local development through subsidies and tariff protection against foreign competition. Large areas, however, remained virtually untouched by modern industrial development, including most of the Iberian Peninsula, southern Italy, and a broad belt of eastern Europe extending from the Balkans on the south to Finland and northern Scandinavia. During the 20th century Europe has experienced periods of considerable economic growth and prosperity, and industrial development has proliferated much more widely throughout the continent; but continued economic development in Europe has been handicapped to a large degree by its multinational characterwhich has spawned economic rivalries among states and two devastating world warsas well as by the exhaustion of many of its resources and by increased economic competition from overseas. Governmental protectionism, which has tended to restrict the potential market for a product to a single country, has deprived many industrial concerns of the efficiencies of large-scale production serving a mass market (such as is found in the United States). In addition, enterprise efficiency has suffered from government support and from a lack of competition within a national market area. Within individual countries there have been growing tensions between regions that have prospered and those that have not. This coreperiphery problem has been particularly acute in situations where the contrasting regions are inhabited by different ethnic groups. Resources Mineral resources With rocks and structures of virtually all geologic periods, Europe possesses a wide variety of useful minerals. Some, exploited since the Bronze Age, are depleted; others have been greatly consumed since the Industrial Revolution. Useful minerals include those that provide energy, ferrous and nonferrous metals and ferroalloys, and those that furnish materials to the chemical and building industries. Europe has a long and commendable prospecting tradition, but, as in the case of North Sea gas and oil, some surprises are still encountered. In relation to the ever-mounting requirements of its economy, however, EuropeRussia and Ukraine apartis heavily dependent on mineral imports. The land Europe A contrast exists between the configuration of peninsular (or western) Europe, and eastern Europe, which is a much larger and more continental area. A convenient division is made by a line linking the base of the Jutland Peninsula with the head of the Adriatic Sea. The western part of the continent clearly has a high proportion of coastline with good maritime access and often with inland penetration by means of navigable rivers. Continental shelvesformer land surfaces that have been covered by shallow seasare a feature of peninsular Europe, while the coasts themselves are both submerged or drowned, as in southwestern Ireland and northwestern Spain, and emergent, as in western Scotland and southern Wales where raised former beaches are in evidence. East of the Vistula River, Europe's expansive lowlands have something of the scale and character of those of northern Asia, but the continent also comprises numerous islands, somenotably the Faeroes and Icelandlocated at a distance from the mainland. Fortuitously, Europe has no continuous mountain obstacle aligned northsouth, corresponding, for example, to the Western Cordillera of North America and the Andes of South America, that would limit access into western Europe from the ocean. Relief Elevations Lands lying at high altitude can, of course, be lands of low relief, but on the European continent relief tends to become more rugged as altitude increases. The greater part of Europe, however, combines low altitude with low relief. Only hill masses less than 800 feet (240 metres) in height rise gently within the East European (or Russian) Plain, which continues northward into Finland, westward into the North European Plain, and southward in the Romanian, Bulgarian, and Hungarian plains. The North European Plain, common to much of Poland, northern Germany, and Denmark, broadens in western France and continues, across the narrow seas, in southeastern Great Britain and Ireland. The major peninsula of Scandinavia is mostly upland and highland, with its relief greatest at the descent to the Norwegian fjords and the sea; eastward and southward the seas are approached more gently. The highest points reached in Norway and Sweden are, respectively, Galdh Peak (8,100 feet) and Mount Kebne (6,926 feet). Iceland's highest peak is Mount Hvannadals, at 6,952 feet, while Ben Nevis, the highest summit in Great Britain, stands at a height of only 4,406 feet. Greater relief is found in those areas in the heart of western and central Europe where uplifted and faulted massifs survive from the Hercynian orogeny. The worn-down Ural Mountains also belong in this category, and their highest point, Mount Narodnaya (6,217 feet), corresponds approximately to that of the Massif Central in south central France. Altitudes in these areas are mainly between about 500 and 2,000 feet, and many steep slopes are to be seen. The highest altitudes and the most rugged relief of the European continent are found farther south, where the structures of the Cenozoic orogeny provide mountain scenery. In the Alps, Mont Blanc rises to a height of 15,771 feet (4,807 metres), which is the highest point on the continent. In the Pyrenees and the Sierra Nevada of Spain, the highest of the peaks exceed 11,000 feet. The Apennines, Dinaric Alps, and Balkan Mountains, as well as the arc-shaped Carpathian Mountains and their southern portion, the Transylvanian Alps, also exhibit high altitudes. The highest peaks in these ranges are Mount Corno (9,554 feet) in the Abruzzi Apennines, Bobotov Kuk (8,274 feet) in the Dinaric Alps, Mount Botev (7,795 feet) in the Balkan Mountains, Gerlachovsk tt (Gerlach; 8,711 feet) in the Western Carpathians, and Mount Moldoveanu (8,347 feet) in the Transylvanian Alps. Above all, in southern EuropeAustria and Switzerland includedlevel, low-lying land is scarce, and mountain, plateau, and hill landforms dominate. The lowest terrain in Europe, virtually lacking relief, stands at the head of the Caspian Sea; there the Caspian Depression reaches some 95 feet (29 metres) below sea level.