The Question of Europe

Contemporary European politics seems to be gripped by a stifling conformism, an uninspiring uniformity of outlook which afflicts all the major parties. However, if there is one issue which does divide—though with the fault-lines within just as much as between right and left—it is the question of Europe, the future of the Union.

But, for all the heat generated by the debate between Eurosceptics and Europhiles, and the vivid claims and counterclaims about federalism or the fate of national sovereignty, there is widespread public confusion about what is at issue—partly because of the opaque nature of the Community’s institutions, and partly because much that is written on the subject is jargon or officalese.

The Question of Europe offers an antidote, by collecting some of the liveliest and sharpest commentary on Europe, across the full political spectrum, from leading authorities in the study of history, economics, philosophy, culture and sociology. Eminent German, Italian, French, Swedish and Irish writers are included, as well as key figures from Britain and the US. Looking paranormically at the past, present and future of integration, The Question of Europe brings polemic and scholarship together to offer us a new way of approaching the Union.

Perry Anderson is the author of, among other books, Spectrum, Lineages of the Absolutist State, Passages from Antiquity to Feudalism, Considerations on Western Marxism, English Questions, The Origins of Postmodernity, and The New Old World. He teaches history at UCLA and is on the editorial board of New Left Review.

Peter Gowan (1946–2009) taught international relations for many years at London Metropolitan University. He was the author of The Global Gamble and A Calculus of Power, co-editor of The Question of Europe, cofounder of the journal Labour Focus on Eastern Europe, and a longstanding member of the editorial board of New Left Review—who published <a href="http://www.newleftreview.org/?view=2803">an interview with Peter Gowan</a> along with <a href="http://www.newleftreview.org/?view=2801">an obituary</a> in Sept–Oct 2009.

Guy Standing is director of the Socio-Economic Programme of the International Labour Organisation. He directed the ILO’s technical programme in Eastern Europe in the early 1990s and was an advisor to the South African government in 1995–96. He has written extensively on labour market and social policy issues.

Göran Therborn holds the Chair of Sociology at the University of Cambridge, and is editor and author of Inequalities of the World, Asia and Europe in Globalization, Between Sex and Power and From Marxism to Post Marxism?