The Meaning of Europe: Geography and Geopolitics

Integration is the main source of political controversy in Europe. As it approaches the new millennium, its sense of unease is becoming palpable. Genuine uncertainty about its ultimate allegiances raises the most basic and divisive of human inquiries: who am I and where do I belong? Charting the changing idea of Europe from the Renaissance to the present day, this book provides a critical genealogy of the European project over several centuries, with particular attention to the last hundred years. It takes as its principal theme the continuing tension between two rival geopolitical tendencies - the nationalist forces of disintegration and localism on the one hand, and the impulse towards greater integration, co-operation on the other - to provide a consideration of what Europe has meant in the past and what it might mean in the future.