European Union History: Themes and Debates

European integration has had, and is continuing to have, an enormous impact on the state of Europe: through transforming the nation-state; creating new supranational institutions and joint policy-making; integrating markets and liberalizing trade; fiscal redistribution; and through fostering the formation of transnational elite networks and growing identification with Europe; but also through accentuating social friction; raising concerns about the remoteness of supranational policy-making and serving as a focal point for 'Eurosceptic' political mobilization. Thus, it is increasingly crucial for researchers, students and citizens to understand the complex history of the present-day European Union. This book provides them with a highly accessible state of the art introduction to how historians and social scientists have conceptualized, written about, and debated this increasingly shared contemporary history of Europe since World War II.

WOLFRAM KAISER is Professor of European Studies at the University of Portsmouth, UK, and Visiting Professor at the College of Europe. He has published widely on European integration, Christian democracy and the history of globalisation. His books include (ed. with Brigitte Leucht and Morten Rasmussen) The History of the European Union. Origins of a Trans- and Supranational Polity (Abingdon: Routledge, 2009); Christian Democracy and the Origins of European Union (Cambridge: CUP, 2007); Using Europe, Abusing the Europeans. Britain and European Integration, 1945-63 (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 1999).

ANTONIO VARSORI is Professor of the History of International Relations at the University of Padova, Italy. He has published widely on European integration, the Cold War, and Italian and British foreign policy. His books include La 'Cenerentola d'Europa'. L'Italia e l'integrazione europea dal 1947 a oggi (Soveria Mannelli: Rubbettino, 2010); (ed.) Insidethe European Community. Actors and Policies in the European Integration 1957-1972 (Baden-Baden: Nomos, 2006); (ed. with Elena Calandri) The Failure of Peace in Europe 1943-48 (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2002).