A More Perfect Union

Federal Union in Political Theory and Practice, 1500-1951
Erscheinungsjahr 2024
ISBN: 978-90-485-6377-7
Verlag: Amsterdam University Press

Buch, Englisch, 552 Seiten, Format (B × H): 156 mm x 234 mm

This book tells the history of the ‘federal union’, a concept that may be traced from the early Renaissance to the establishment of the European Coal and Steel Community (1951) – the predecessor of today’s European Union. It is a story of three federal canons: of greater and lesser thinkers, of utopian peace plans, and of practical experiences with federal unions. Together they shaped the concepts that created the ECSC.
This book unlocks the past of the EU – a union that always thought it didn’t have a past, but was, on the contrary, ‘sui generis’, without examples or predecessors. Although there was nothing inevitable about the founding of the EU, A More Perfect Union shows that it was plausible and perhaps even predictable that such a union would be formed at some point – and that the aftermath of the Second World War was exactly the kind of founding moment about which federal theorists in previous centuries had speculated.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Livestro, Joshua

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Geschichte einzelner Länder Amerikanische Geschichte
• Sozialwissenschaften Politikwissenschaft Politische Systeme Gewerkschaften, Industrielle Beziehungen
• Sozialwissenschaften Politikwissenschaft Politikwissenschaft Allgemein Politische Geschichte

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Introduction
Chapter 1 The Machiavellian Moment: on Modes of Expansion
Chapter 2 A Taxonomy of Unions
Chapter 3 The European Republic
Chapter 4 The American moment
Chapter 5 The Necessity of Compromise
Chapter 6 The European Congress as Peace Pact
Chapter 7 Germany, from Staatenbund to Bundesstaat
Chapter 8 The Peace Movement’s Federal Utopianism
Chapter 9 Peace through Union
Chapter 10 Europe’s Anti-Federalist Moment
Chapter 11 The Hour for Union
Chapter 12 Europe’s Federalist Moment
Conclusion
Epilogue: The United States of Europe
Acknowledgments
Index

Über Autor(innen)

Livestro, Joshua
Joshua Livestro worked as political adviser in London, Brussels, and The Hague before becoming a columnist and essayist. He published in the Wall Street Journal, Politico, and NRC Handelsblad. Previous book: De Adem van Grootheid, a history of 1950s Holland (Prometheus, Amsterdam).