Gilbert, M: European Integration

Chapter 1: Introduction Chapter 2: Enemies to Partners: The Politics of Cooperation in Western Europe 1945-1950 Chapter 3: Ever Closer Union: From the Schuman Plan to the Economic Community 1950-1958 Chapter 4: In the Shadow of the General: De Gaulle and the EEC 1958-1969 Chapter 5: Weathering the Storm: The EC during the 1970s Chapter 6: The 1992 Initiative and Relaunch of the Community Chapter 7: The Maastricht Compromise Chapter 8: EUphoria? Chapter 9: Toward a Twin-Track Europe?

Mark Gilbert is professor of contemporary European history at the Johns Hopkins School for Advanced International Studies in Bologna.

In this polished and perceptive work, Gilbert (Johns Hopkins SAIS, Bologna) covers the evolving integration of Europe since 1945. He seeks successfully to establish context and to show the contingency of events, rather than to prove a theory. Key focus is given to the views and roles of major national leaders. The author is thus neither intentionally Eurofederalist nor Eurosceptical, but is certainly more cautious about integration than in his Surpassing Realism (2003). In particular, Gilbert argues that European integration may well have reached its limit, given both the diversity across countries and public opinion in most member states. The book is quite up-to-date (through 2011), thus including the current economic and debt crisis. Although a historian, the author is entirely familiar with the relevant political science literature. The book also contains both a chronology and a useful bibliographical essay designed as the basis for an undergraduate history course. While there are many books on the history of European integration, this one stands out for its insights, balance, and quality of writing. It is a pleasure to read. Summing Up: Highly recommended. CHOICE Mark Gilbert's book escapes the twin mythologies of Eurofederalism and Euroscepticism to provide a balanced, well-crafted, clear-cut, and yet comprehensive historical account of the complex, often twisted paths of European integration up to the present. It illuminates the moments of inspired political leadership, no less than the retreats and imperfect compromises, in a narrative that includes the international as well as domestic roots, stimuli, and constraints that built the Europe in which we live. Integration here comes alive neither as neat design nor preordained fate but as the lively, messy historical outcome of converging, and yet diverse and often conflicting, views, interests, and responses to ever-shifting challenges. -- Federico Romero, European University Institute Mark Gilbert is a