“…In a nutshell, we suggest that Europe has not been conceptualized and has not been theorized in historical terms, because Europe itself represents an implicit theory of history, which organizes historical accounts that appear immediately plausible and relevant to the field of Historical IR conventionally understood (in this volume see also MacKay and LaRoche, 2021;and Hom, 2021). Unpacking this implicit theory, we suggest, not only allows us to get a clearer sense of what 'Europe' does in terms of conceptual work.…”