Kottos Europe between Imperial Decline and Quest for Integration

Pro-European Groups and the French, Belgian and British Empires (1947–1957)
1. Auflage 2016
ISBN: 978-2-8076-0078-2
Verlag: Peter Lang
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, 238 Seiten

Reihe: ISSN

The book assesses the role of three pro-European pressure groups (the European Union of Federalists, the Socialist Movement for the United States of Europe and the European League for Economic Cooperation) and their impact in fostering new relations between Europe and the colonies between 1947 and 1957. It argues that the association of the overseas territories into the European Economic Community in 1957, the founding stone of today’s European policy for aid and development, was to a large extent the result of the intense intellectual activity that took place in these transnational groups upstream of the signature of the Treaty of Rome.

A transnational approach of these groups uncovers the broader objectives of the European policy: that the association would in the long run revive the declining links between Europe and its overseas territories. On the one hand, part of the influential British and continental pro-European elites wanted to create a European Commonwealth which would establish new preferential and intergovernmental links between countries of the Council of Europe, the British Dominions and the European colonies. On the other hand, a number of French and Belgian pro-Europeans wanted to create a Eurafrican community, a federation linking Europe and Africa economically and politically. Both the European Commonwealth and the Eurafrican community were designed in response to postwar challenges: the dollar gap, the communist threat in the Third World, the rise of new African and Asian nationalisms or the position of European powers in a new globalised world.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Kottos, Laura

Fachgebiete

• Sozialwissenschaften Politikwissenschaft Politikwissenschaft Allgemein Politische Geschichte
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtliche Themen Kolonialgeschichte, Geschichte des Imperialismus
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Europäische Geschichte
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtliche Themen Mentalitäts- und Sozialgeschichte
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtliche Themen Postkoloniale Geschichte, Nationale Befreiung und Unabhängigkeit

Inhaltsverzeichnis

European integration – European empires – European colonisation and decolonisation – Comparative history France, Belgium, the United Kingdom – Pro-European groups – Transnational history – Eurafrica – European Movement – 1940s–1950s – The external relations of the EU.

Über Autor(innen)

Laura Kottos is a scientific collaborator to the Research Unit Modern and Contemporary Worlds at the Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB, Belgium). She obtained her Ph.D. from the University of Reading (United Kingdom) where she was part of the Research Programme ‘The Liberal Way of War: strategy, ideology, representations’.