Sentence:  Han 's student days were at a time when <WSD>Europe</WSD> was in a new intellectual ferment following the revolutions in America and in France , Germany and Italy were rising from divisive nationalisms and a strong wave of intellectual awareness was sweeping the Continent . 
Meaning of the word marked with <WSD> tags:  the 2nd smallest continent (actually a vast peninsula of Eurasia); the British use `Europe' to refer to all of the continent except the British Isles