The Community of Europe : A History of European Integration since 1945 / Derek W. Urwin

Livre

Urwin, Derek William (1939-....). Auteur

Edité par Longman - 1995 - Second ed.

First published in 1991, this highly successful book immediately established itself as one of the best concise introductions to the New Europe for students of modern history, politics and international relations, and for general readers interested in a deeper understanding of our own times. Now this welcome Second Edition updates the story of the beginning of 1994. Beginning whith the calls for a Federal Europe amongst the Resistance movements in the Second World War, Derek Urwin examines the postwar debates over integration and the early efforts at institution-building (which resulted in, amongst other new foundations, the Council of Europe and the Organisation for European Economic Cooperation). He then shows how, in the 1950s, Western Europe split down the middle with the formation of the European Economic Community and the European Free Trade Association. The bulk of the book is then devoted to the history of the European Community itself after 1957: its structure; the arguments over political control; the struggle to develop common policies and to assess their effectiveness; the successive enlargements of the original Community and the problems these have brought; and the disagreements between member states over what its political and economic objectives should be. The First Edition of this book was published at a point when he Community was still on the road to Maastricht. The story has moved on from there, and the Maastricht conference itself now seems a high point of Euro-enthusiasm for financial unity and political federalism. Although monetary union and political convergence remain firmly on the immediate agenda of the Community itself, much of the earlier messianic fervour has faded, even in its heartlands. Yet, only 50 years after the last global war subsided in those heartlands, the concept of Europe as a community of shared inheriance and common interests -Mikhail Gorbatchev's "Common European home"- is almost universtal today; and, whatever disenchantements may be current amongst its citizens, the Community itself continues to play an ever greater role in their lives, and in the world beyond its boundaries. Derek Urwin's new final chapter -"An even closer union?- examines these achievement and uncertainties, and considers the Community and its prospects in the mid-1990s.

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