A fully revised and updated edition of Surpassing Realism: The Politics of European Integration since 1945, this book remains the standard for concise histories of the European Union. Mark Gilbert offers a clear and balanced narrative of European integration since its inception to the present, set in the wider history of the post-war period. Imperial decline and decolonization, the threat and then fall of communism, the impact of American policy, and the democratization of the Mediterranean and central European countries are just some of the contemporaneous historical developments whose intersecting stories have been woven into this book's fabric. The European Union remains a remarkable experiment in regional cooperation, but the aura of success that has enveloped the process of integration for much of the period since the 1950s is dissipating in the wake of dire economic collapses and heated immigration debates. Gilbert concludes by examining the mood of crisis that has taken hold in the EU since 2005 and considers the Union's future.
1 Introduction 2 Enemies to Partners: The Politics of Cooperation in Western Europe 1945--1950 The American Vision for Europe: The Marshall Plan and the OEEC A "Harmonious Society": The Vision of the European Movement Cooperation between Governments: The British Vision The German Question and the Schuman Plan 3 Ever Closer Union: From the Schuman Plan to the Economic Community 1950--1958 The Coal and Steel Community The Defense Community From Messina to Rome The Treaties of Rome: March 25, 1957 Washington's Benevolent Gaze 4 In the Shadow of the General: De Gaulle and the EEC 1958--1969 The EEC's First Four Years The "Union of States" The First British Negotiation for Entry The "Empty Chair" Crisis and the Luxembourg Compromise A Certain Vision of Europe 5 Weathering the Storm: The EC during the 1970s The Hague Conference and Its Consequences From Six to Nine Monetary Turmoil 1971--1974 Foreign Policy Initiatives and the Tindemans Report The European Monetary System Beyond the Common Market 6 The 1992 Initiative and Relaunch of the Community France Sees the Light The British Budgetary Question Mediterranean Enlargement The 1992 Initiative and the Dooge Committee The Single European Act Evaluating the Single European Act 7 The Maastricht Compromise The "Paquet Delors" and the Delors Report The Bruges Speech German Unification and Its Consequences An Obstacle Removed The "Hour of Europe" The Treaty on European Union Making Sense of Maastricht 8 EUphoria? Adopting the Euro Enlargement The Institutional Question The EU's Growing World Role 9 Toward a Twin-Track Europe? Brought Back to Earth A Pigs' Breakfast? European Norms