The European Union since 1945

Reference & Research Book News, August, 2005

JN30

2004-043180

0-582-42393-7

The European Union since 1945.

Blair, Alasdair. (Seminar studies in history)

Longman, [c]2005

166 p.

$16.00 (pa)

Blair (international relations, Coventry U., UK) describes the economic and political factors that shaped the process of European integration as the ECC led to the EC which led to the EU. He begins with the situation at the close of the Second World War and shortly after, when it seemed a shared economic outlook could be one deterrent to further conflict. Discussion includes the emergence of unity within certain market sectors, the growth of the community, its crisis of faith from 1969 to 1979, renewed progress and creation of the Single European Act in the 1980s, and the transformation of the majority of Europe into a co-active, but not monolithic political and economic entity from the 1990s to the present. Relevant primary documents are included in a special section.