The Must Reads Club
Top Books on the European Union
Today’s reading is all about the EU, love it or hate it, its has had and continues to have a great influence on Europe.
We will start the list at number 10 and work our way down to number 1.
10. De Gaulle: The Ruler, 1945–1970 by Jean Lacouture
It is impossible to understand the European Union without getting to grips with France, and this biography of the man who detested the European Community but then vetoed British entry in 1963 is an accessible place to start.
9. Europe Adrift by John Newhouse
An American reporter, unequaled as a chronicler of diplomatic complexities, journeys around modern Europe. He focuses especially on the tensions between nation-state leaders, many of them near-federalists, and the competing ambitions of regions such as Bavaria and Catalonia.
8. Against a Federal Europe by William Cash
From the myriad of Eurosceptic texts, this can be recommended as being as good — passionate, venomous and reasonably scholarly — as any.
7. A Life at the Centre by Roy Jenkins
Among the best of all post-war British political autobiographies, this is especially relevant to the development of Europe, which Jenkins passionately believed in and, latterly, helped to run as President of the Commission.
6. The Penguin Companion to the European Union by Timothy Bainbridge
An indispensable collection of answers to every historical and factual question you could have about the highly complex institution which the British tabloid press manages to demonize into reductive, mendacious simplicity.
5. Delors — Inside the House that Jacques Built by Charles Grant
A thorough journey through the life of the most influential modern European and around the power center of Brussels.
4. Britons by Linda Colley
One of the most influential texts of the 90s, presenting a learned yet intensely readable account of how England and her Celtic neighbors became “Britain”. A book much reviled by Eurosceptics for deconstructing some of their illusions about the origins of their own nation-state.
3. Ernest Bevin by Alan Bullock
A gigantic account in three volumes of the last British foreign secretary to sit at the global top table — yet who frustrated the first opportunity for Britain to become a European country.
2. Jean Monnet, the First Statesman of Interdependence by Francois Duchene
A scholarly but gripping and sympathetic biography of the self-effacing egotist who dreamed up the idea of the European Community.
And the number one for this list of top books about the EU is… drum roll please…
1. The Price of Victory by Michael Charlton
An irreplaceable exercise in oral history, capturing the recollections of scores of the principal officials and politicians who were at the heart of the development of post-war Europe. Brings back, as nothing else can, the contemporary reality of the 50s.
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