Circle of stars: A history of the European Union

• Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies

The economic and cultural context of the individuals who drove the European project from 1992 to 2022

Robert Schuman Director Erik Jones is organizing a small group of scholars from different disciplines to read and comment on this manuscript on the history of Europe since 1992. The book is under contract with Yale Press, which publishes titles aimed at lay readers of politics and contemporary history. At the same time, there is hope that the book also speaks to students, scholars and practitioners of the European Union and international affairs.

The EU is often presented as a project driven by disembodied states and supranational institutions. This book presents the EU as an arena in which vivid faces contest their countries’ place in Europe and Europe’s place in the world. It situates the political history of the EU in its economic and cultural context to understand who these individuals were and what drove their hopes and fears. The book covers the history of the EU from 1992 to 2022. Its central thesis is that the EU was driven not by Eurocrats but Heads of State or Government who looked to Brussels as a new global order emerged. During its first three decades, the EU created a common asylum policy, launched the euro, and showed global leadership on issues ranging from the end of the Cold War to climate change. And yet, European political leaders’ naïve embrace of globalisation opened the door to a new generation of right-wing populists who capitalised on voters’ political discontent. The resulting tensions came to a head over Brexit but not to an end, the book concludes. As the EU entered its fourth decade, European political leaders regrouped in the face of a global pandemic and war in Ukraine, while right wing populists gathered strength.

This event is upon invitation only