That darker strain

European history is made up not only of the success story. The history of modern Europe is comprised not only of advances in science, technology, the arts and letters, the Industrial Revolution and the flourishing of liberal democracies and the empowerment of the general populace through constitutional constraints on the prerogatives of the ruling class. Europe history has a darker heritage as well that runs alongside the narrative of success with which we flatter ourselves. 

The teetering and ultimately collapsing ancien regime produced its own literature, its own theories of society. It engendered imperialism, colonialism, racism, antisemitism, and a variety of other, lesser brands of ideology that marked the political and ideological landscape of the modern era, beginning in the early 17th century and reaching through most of the 20th century and to the present day. We need to understand the reasoning behind that darker strain else we are left with a naïve impression of how politics works.