Author: Craig Parsons Publisher: Cornell University Press ISBN: 1501732080 Category : Political Science Languages : en Pages : 264
Book Description
The quasi-federal European Union stands out as the major exception in the thinly institutionalized world of international politics. Something has led Europeans—and only Europeans—beyond the nation-state to a fundamentally new political architecture. Craig Parsons argues in A Certain Idea of Europe that this "something" was a particular set of ideas generated in Western Europe after the Second World War. In Parsons's view, today's European Union reflects the ideological (and perhaps visionary) project of an elite minority. His book traces the progressive victory of this project in France, where the battle over European institutions erupted most divisively. Drawing on archival research and extensive interviews with French policymakers, the author carefully traces a fifty-year conflict between radically different European plans. Only through aggressive leadership did the advocates of a supranational "community" Europe succeed at building the EU and binding their opponents within it. Parsons puts the causal impact of ideas, and their binding effects through institutions, at the center of his book. In so doing he presents a strong logic of "social construction"—a sharp departure from other accounts of EU history that downplay the role of ideas and ideology.
Author: Pekka Korhonen Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing ISBN: 144382531X Category : History Languages : en Pages : 195
Book Description
In this volume, the authors examine the mutual relationship of the East and Europe within the Eurasian geopolitical space. They investigate how people to the East of Europe understand themselves vis-à-vis Europe, how they have processed European influences, and how states in the East compete with the West. The East is a strong rhetorical metaphor efficiently colouring something as non-European, or not-essentially-European. Studies in this volume examine the linguistic techniques that are used in erecting social and political boundaries, and how they are eventually demolished. The main focus is on turning points of time and transitional periods where the stability of status quo and maintenance of traditional values have been questioned, both in history and at present. All analysis is strictly based on original language sources, which are interpreted with thorough social, cultural and historical expertise. The main conceptual tool used for analysis is the binarity of boundaries. Binarity, or the use of boundary creating dichotomies, is constantly used in public discussion and political strategies to structure geopolitical space, create imperial power plays, and competing centre-periphery formations. The empirically strong social and cultural expertise of the authors, and their multidisciplinary use of geopolitical theory in conjunction with new linguistically inspired analytical tools create a highly original perspective on the Eurasian political space. The book is a significant contribution to studies on Europe and its neighbourhood.
Author: Mark Hewitson Publisher: Berghahn Books ISBN: 0857457276 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 361
Book Description
The period between 1917 and 1957, starting with the birth of the USSR and the American intervention in the First World War and ending with the Treaty of Rome, is of the utmost importance for contextualizing and understanding the intellectual origins of the European Community. During this time of 'crisis,' many contemporaries, especially intellectuals, felt they faced a momentous decision which could bring about a radically different future. The understanding of what Europe was and what it should be was questioned in a profound way, forcing Europeans to react. The idea of a specifically European unity finally became, at least for some, a feasible project, not only to avoid another war but to avoid the destruction of the idea of European unity. This volume reassesses the relationship between ideas of Europe and the European project and reconsiders the impact of long and short-term political transformations on assumptions about the continent's scope, nature, role and significance.
Author: Manfred Hildermeier Publisher: Berghahn Books ISBN: 9781845452735 Category : Biography & Autobiography Languages : en Pages : 136
Book Description
More than a decade after the breakdown of the Soviet Empire and the reunification of Europe, historiographies and historical concepts still stood very much apart. This book talks about how there were no common efforts for joint interpretations and no attempts to reach a common understanding of central notions and concepts.
Author: Tomek E. Jankowski Publisher: New Europe Books ISBN: 0985062339 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 853
Book Description
Eastern Europe! is a brief and concise (but informative) introduction to Eastern Europe and its myriad customs and history. When the legendary Romulus killed his brother Remus and founded the city of Rome in 753 BCE, Plovdiv -- today the second-largest city in Bulgaria -- was already thousands of years old. Indeed, London, Paris, Berlin, Vienna, Madrid, Brussels, Amsterdam are all are mere infants compared to Plovdiv. This is just one of the paradoxes that haunts and defines the New Europe, that part of Europe that was freed from Soviet bondage in 1989 which is at once both much older than the modern Atlantic-facing power centers of Western Europe while also being in some ways much younger than them. Even those knowledgeable about Western Europe often see Eastern Europe as terra incognita, with a sign on the border declaring "Here be monsters." This book is a gateway to understanding both what unites and separates Eastern Europeans from their Western brethren, and how this vital region has been shaped by, but has also left its mark on, Western Europe, Central Asia, the Middle East and North Africa. Ideal for students, businesspeople, and those who simply want to know more about where Grandma or Grandpa came from, Eastern Europe! is a user-friendly guide to a region that is all too often mischaracterized as remote, insular, and superstitious. Illustrations throughout include: 40 photos, 40 maps and 40 figures (tables, charts, etc.) From the Trade Paperback edition.
Author: Roberto M. Dainotto Publisher: Duke University Press ISBN: 0822389622 Category : Literary Criticism Languages : en Pages : 283
Book Description
Europe (in Theory) is an innovative analysis of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century ideas about Europe that continue to inform thinking about culture, politics, and identity today. Drawing on insights from subaltern and postcolonial studies, Roberto M. Dainotto deconstructs imperialism not from the so-called periphery but from within Europe itself. He proposes a genealogy of Eurocentrism that accounts for the way modern theories of Europe have marginalized the continent’s own southern region, portraying countries including Greece, Italy, Spain, and Portugal as irrational, corrupt, and clan-based in comparison to the rational, civic-minded nations of northern Europe. Dainotto argues that beginning with Montesquieu’s The Spirit of Laws (1748), Europe not only defined itself against an “Oriental” other but also against elements within its own borders: its South. He locates the roots of Eurocentrism in this disavowal; internalizing the other made it possible to understand and explain Europe without reference to anything beyond its boundaries. Dainotto synthesizes a vast array of literary, philosophical, and historical works by authors from different parts of Europe. He scrutinizes theories that came to dominate thinking about the continent, including Montesquieu’s invention of Europe’s north-south divide, Hegel’s “two Europes,” and Madame de Staël’s idea of opposing European literatures: a modern one from the North, and a pre-modern one from the South. At the same time, Dainotto brings to light counter-narratives written from Europe’s margins, such as the Spanish Jesuit Juan Andrés’s suggestion that the origins of modern European culture were eastern rather than northern and the Italian Orientalist Michele Amari’s assertion that the South was the cradle of a social democracy brought to Europe via Islam.
Author: Craig Parsons
Author: Shane Weller
Author: Pekka Korhonen
Author: Anthony Pagden
Author: Larry Wolff
Author: Denys Hay
Author: Mark Hewitson
Author: Manfred Hildermeier
Author: Tomek E. Jankowski
Author: Roberto M. Dainotto