European Integration, 1950-2003: Superstate or New Market Economy? - Hardcover

Gillingham, John

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0521813174 ISBN 13: 9780521813174

Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 2003

Synopsis

Integration is the most significant European historical development in the past fifty years, eclipsing in importance even the collapse of the USSR. This movement toward economic and political union has not only helped revive, transform and rejuvenate a battered civilization; it is opening the way to a promising future. Yet, until now, no satisfactory explanation is to be found in any single book as to why integration is significant, how it originated and has developed, how it has changed and continues to change Europe, and where it is headed. John Gillingham is a professor of history at the University of Missouri, St. Louis. His fields of research include European economic and cultural history as well as the history of international organizations. His book Coal, Steel and the Rebirth of Europe, 1945-1955(Cambridge, 1991) was awarded the prestigious George Lewis Beer Prize by the American Historical Association. In addition to two edited volumes and approximately fifty published articles, Gillingham is the author of Industry and Politics in the Third Reich (Columbia, 1985) and Belgian Business in the Nazi New Order (Ghent, 1977). Gillingham has been the recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Woodrow Wilson Center, and elsewhere.

About this title

Review

"John Gillingham's fascinating history of European integration brings out the shifts of gears, changes of direction and divergent impulses that brought the European Union to its present established but contested shape as the triumph of market over state. Gillingham wanted his book to 'trumpet like an elephant,' and it does. To extend his metaphor, it gores any number of sacred cows, from the myths of the Founding Fathers and of American benevolence to the European social model. It will stimulate lively and constructive debate."
Robert O. Paxton, Columbia University

"John Gillingham is the preeminent American historian of the European Union. His book builds on vast scholarly knowledge to provide the first full-length history of European integration from the Second World War to the present day."
Charles S. Maier, Harvard University

"Professor John Gillingham's sweeping reinterpretation of European integration since 1950 is informed, provocative, and fresh. It combines a deep appreciation of the market incentives that have made European cooperation inevitable, a subtle account of the ideologies and diplomatic circumstances that shaped its precise form, and a sharp Hayekian critique of the policy choices that were made. It is sure to generate scholarly debate for years to come."
Andrew Moravcsik, Harvard University

"John Gillingham has produced an excellent, up-to-date history of the EU which overturns many preconceived ideas and challenges the views of Eurofanatics and Eurosceptics alike. It is a dazzling performance, full of paradoxes and ironies and some very funny lines. If anyone wants to know what little actually works in the EU and why, this is the book to read. It is acidly critical yet economically rational. It leaves the usual hagiographical histories of European bureaucracy way behind. Every student of post-war Europe will have to come to terms with it. It is an astounding achievement."
Alan Sked, Department of International History, London School of Economics, formerly Convener of European Studies

"The European Union is very difficult to write about, because it can be bewilderingly technical, and at the same time invites windy rhetoric. It takes immense familiarity with the subject - and particular knowledge of what are still very different countries - to write a book both accessible and worth reading. John Gillingham has succeeded. This is a book that will be of great use at any level - politicians wishing to make serious speeches, teachers needing to put together a course, or just travellers in an aircraft. I am in the author's debt."
Norman Stone, Director of the Turkish-Russian Institute, Bilkent University, Ankara, formerly of Oxford University

"Gillingham has written the first comprehensive history of European integration and produced a profoundly original reinterpretation of this enormously complex process."
John P. McKay, University of Illinois, Urbana

"...impressive and engaging... The reader closes this book-length discourse ... with the certitude of having gained knowledge and insight into the workings and rocky foundations of the European experiment."
Business History Review

"John Gillingham has written an entertaining and informative history of European integration...[His] book breaks many conventions of historical and academic writing. It is bold in its scope and in its trans disciplinary methodological approach taken to its topic...It is a lively read with lots of political history detail. I recommend it."
Jeffrey Sommers, Andre Gunder Frank, Journal of World History

About this edition

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 0521813174
• ISBN 13: 9780521813174
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 608