Kiran Klaus Patel

Die EU ist im Krisenmodus. Nach einer jahrzehntelangen Erfolgsgeschichte scheint die Union nun erstmals in ihrer Existenz bedroht. Doch ist die heutige Situation wirklich so außergewöhnlich? Auf Grundlage der neuesten Forschung und eigener Archivrecherchen erzählt Kiran Klaus Patel die Geschichte der europäischen Integration im Kalten Krieg neu und taucht damit auch die Entwicklungen der Gegenwart in ein anderes Licht. Das Selbstbild der EU könnte strahlender nicht sein. Sie steht für Friedensstiftung, Wirtschaftswachstum, eine an Werten orientierte Politik sowie ein unaufhaltsam zusammenwachsendes Europa. Und im Rückblick will es so scheinen, als hätten ihre Vorläuferorganisationen dies alles ganz aus sich heraus und nahezu zwangsläufig geschaffen. In seinem mit überraschenden Einblicken gespickten Buch hinterfragt Kiran Klaus Patel diese Standarderzählung und macht deutlich, dass dieses überzogene Selbstbild das heutige Krisenempfinden unnötig verschärft, weil für neu und bedrohlich gehalten wird, was es immer schon gegeben hat. Eine kritische Geschichte, die fragt, wie die EU wirklich entstand – jenseits des Wunschbilds der politischen Sonntagsreden.

Eine kritische Geschichte

Projekt Europa

A bracing re-examination of the myths and realities of European integration which challenges conventional wisdoms of Europhiles and Eurosceptics alike. Kiran Klaus Patel explores the EU's contribution to peace, prosperity, and democracy, its impact on peoples' lives and the lessons of the past for its contemporary crisis.

A History

Project Europe

The Common Agricultural Policy was the most important policy for the longest duration of the European Economic Community's existence. Apart from subsidizing and modernizing European agriculture and securing supplies for its consumers, this policy was meant to be the beacon of European integration. However, it also became the most controversial policy of the EU - symbolized by subsidized overproduction, bureaucracy, and burgeoning farmers' protests. This volume provides the first archive-based assessment of its history in the age of the Cold War and beyond. Its chapters deal with the wider context of agricultural integration since the 1920s; with the basic ideas that drove this policy; with the negotiations and controversies that went along with it as well as with its economic effects and global impact. Apart from its empirical findings, this book offers new ways of linking EU history to larger trends of contemporary history. The editor of this volume, Kiran Klaus Patel, is Professor of EU history and transatlantic relations at the European University Institute in Florence.

The History of European Integration and the Common Agricultural Policy Since 1945

Fertile Ground for Europe?

Federico Romero

Ulrich Krotz

This thought-provoking collection analyses the European Community's external relations between 1957 and 1992, with a particular focus upon their broader impact and global significance. Reconceptualizing the long arc of the EC's international role, from its inception in the 1950s to the end of the Cold War, the chapters identify and assess the factors that either supported or impeded Europe's international projection within this period. Organized into three parts, the authors investigate the EC's relations with key countries and world regions, discuss its activities within key policy areas, and offer reflections and conclusions on the various arguments that are put forward. Each chapter considers the entire period from 1957-1992 to identify and explain overarching trends, key decisions and historical conjunctions through scholarly literature, key debates and original discussion of each topic or policy issue. A final chapter situates the main findings within wider contexts, situating the EC in Cold War history. Bringing together international history and international relations, this project allows for cross-disciplinary dialogue and the careful discussion of key concepts, analytical approaches, and empirical findings. Filling a gap in our understanding of the early development of the EC's role as an autonomous global actor, this book holds important messages for the modern day, as the EU's position in global politics continues to shape the world.

The EC Towards a Global Role

Europe's Cold War Relations

Culture is one of the most complex and contested fields of European integration. This book analyzes EU cultural politics since their emergence in the 1980s with a particular focus on the European Capital of Culture program, the flagship of EU cultural policy. It discusses both the central as well as local levels and contextualizes EU policies with programmes of other European organisations, such as the Council of Europe. By asking what "Europe" actually means for European cultural policy, the book goes beyond the confines of official organizations and the political sphere, to discuss the contribution, impact and appropriation among a more diverse group of actors and participants, such as transnational experts, local bureaucrats, cultural managers, urban dwellers and the visitors. Its principal aim is to debunk the myth of Brussels as the centre of cultural Europeanization. Instead, it argues that European cultural policy has to be seen as a relational, multi-directional movement, involving a wide variety of stakeholders and leading to conflicts and collaborations at various levels. This book combines the perspectives of political scientists, sociologists, anthropologists and historians, at the intersection between EU, urban, and cultural studies, and changes our understanding of ‘Europeanization’ by opening up new empirical and conceptual avenues. Challenging the dominant interpretation of European cultural policies, The Cultural Politics of Europe will be of interest to students and scholars of European studies, political scientists, sociologists, anthropologists, geographers, historians and cultural studies.

European Capitals of Culture and European Union since the 1980s

The Cultural Politics of Europe

A systematic comparison between the Nazi Labor Service and the Civilian Conservation Corps.

Labor Service in Nazi Germany and New Deal America, 1933-1945

Soldiers of Labor

The New Deal: A Global History provides a radically new interpretation of a pivotal period in US history. The first comprehensive study of the New Deal in a global context, the book compares American responses to the international crisis of capitalism and democracy during the 1930s to responses by other countries around the globe—not just in Europe but also in Latin America, Asia, and other parts of the world. Work creation, agricultural intervention, state planning, immigration policy, the role of mass media, forms of political leadership, and new ways of ruling America's colonies—all had parallels elsewhere and unfolded against a backdrop of intense global debates. By avoiding the distortions of American exceptionalism, Kiran Klaus Patel shows how America's reaction to the Great Depression connected it to the wider world. Among much else, the book explains why the New Deal had enormous repercussions on China; why Franklin D. Roosevelt studied the welfare schemes of Nazi Germany; and why the New Dealers were fascinated by cooperatives in Sweden—but ignored similar schemes in Japan. Ultimately, Patel argues, the New Deal provided the institutional scaffolding for the construction of American global hegemony in the postwar era, making this history essential for understanding both the New Deal and America's rise to global leadership.

Kiran Klaus Patel

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