Twentieth-century Europe - P. M. H. Bell

Beginning with thefundamental question 'what is Europe?', this exceptionally lucid new history of the continent from 1900 to 2004 opens up a whole range of fresh perspectives. It sets out to examine the proposition that the idea of European unity makes sense when there is more that unites Europe than divides it, and to ask when that has been true during the past hundred years. It has been written in the belief that the current British discussion on European integration concentrates too heavily on immediate issues like the euro and the constitution, and lacks the vital dimension of historical perspective. As events of the last decade of the twentieth century have demonstrated graphically, Europe's history is as much about the destinies and competing claims of the smaller as of the larger states.