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This book explores the largely neglected issue of responses to the US Strategic Defence Initiative (SDI, or the 'Star Wars' missile defence programme) across NATO. The chapters here explore the reactions of different Western allies to the announcement of the SDI in 1983 and especially the 1985 invitation to participate. While existing studies have explored the origins of the American programme and the role it may have played in ending the Cold War, this volume breaks new ground by considering the impact of the SDI on transatlantic relations in the 1980s. Based on newly available archival sources, this volume re-evaluates the responses of eight NATO member-state governments, as well as the So...
This book is a detailed and original look at the radical reorganisation of French heavy industry in the turbulent period between the establishment of the Vichy regime in 1940 and the creation of the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC), the forerunner to the European Union, in 1952. By studying institutions ranging from Vichy’s Organisation Committees to Jean Monnet’s Commissariat Général du Plan (CGP), Luc-André Brunet challenges existing narratives and reveals significant continuities from Vichy to post-war initiatives such as the Monnet Plan and the ECSC. Based on extensive multi-archival research, this book sheds important new light on economic collaboration and resistance in Vichy, the post-war revival of the French economy, and the origins of European integration.
This edited collection draws together new historical writing on the Commonwealth. It features the work of younger scholars, as well as established academics, and highlights themes such as law and sovereignty, republicanism and the monarchy, French engagement with the Commonwealth, the anti-apartheid struggle, race and immigration, memory and commemoration, and banking. The volume focusses less on the Commonwealth as an institution than on the relevance and meaning of the Commonwealth to its member countries and peoples. By adopting oblique, de-centred, approaches to Commonwealth history, unusual or overlooked connections are brought to the fore while old problems are looked at from fresh vantage points – be this turning points like the relationship between ‘old’ and `new’ Commonwealth members from 1949, or the distinctive roles of major figures like Jawaharlal Nehru or Jan Smuts. The volume thereby aims to refresh interest in Commonwealth history as a field of comparative international history.
A new and provocative take on the formerly classified history of accelerating superpower military competition in space in the late Cold War and beyond. In March 1983, President Ronald Reagan shocked the world when he established the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), derisively known as “Star Wars,” a space-based missile defense program that aimed to protect the US from nuclear attack. In Weapons in Space, Aaron Bateman draws from recently declassified American, European, and Soviet documents to give an insightful account of SDI, situating it within a new phase in the militarization of space after the superpower détente fell apart in the 1970s. In doing so, Bateman reveals the largely ...
Bringing together political, diplomatic, economic, cultural, and contemporary history, this book explores why and how European integration came to pass. It tells a fascinating story of ideals and realpolitik, political dreams and geographical realities, and planning and chaos. Mathieu Segers reveals that the roots of today's European Union lie deep in Europe's past and encompass more than war and peace, or diplomacy and economics. Based on original archival and primary source research, Segers provides an integrated history of the beginnings of European integration and the emergence of post-war Western Europe and today's European Union. The Origins of European Integration offers a broad perspective on the genealogy of post-war Western Europe, providing readers with a deeper understanding of contemporary European history and the history of transatlantic relations.
The history of Europe is marked not only by violence and division but also by efforts to reduce the destructiveness of war. In this volume, the authors explore the meaning of ‘Europe’ within war and peace discourses from the eighteenth to the twentieth centuries. They examine imagined wars, the post-1815 security order, the portrayal of Russian and Muslim 'Others,' double standards in international law, pacifist rhetoric, and the role of ‘Europe’ in war propaganda and resistance movements. The authors demonstrate how both war and peace practices have shaped the concept of ‘Europe’ over time.
Foreign policy is a tricky business. Typically, challenges and proposed solutions are perceived as disparate unless a leader can amass enough support for an idea that creates alignment. And because the prime minister is typically the one proposing that idea, Canadian foreign policy can be analyzed through the actions of these leaders. Statesmen, Strategists, and Diplomats explores how prime ministers from Sir John A. Macdonald to Justin Trudeau have shaped foreign policy by manipulating government structures, adopting and rejecting options, and imprinting their personalities on the process. Contributors consider the impact of a wide range of policy decisions – increasing or decreasing department budgets, forming or ending alliances, and pursuing trade relationships – particularly as these choices affected the bureaucracies that deliver foreign policy diplomatically and militarily. This innovative focus is destined to trigger a new appreciation for the formidable personal attention and acuity involved in a successful approach to external affairs.
This volume suggests new, theoretically informed approaches for historians and social scientists to engage with the policy of enlargement – across rounds and in all its diversity. It follows three approaches: first tracing Longue Durée developments; second, investigating enlargement Beyond the Road to Membership; and third, exploring the Entangled Exchanges and synergies between the EC/EU and its outside. It attempts to properly historicise the process of enlargement with contributions from historians, social scientists and a legal scholar exemplifying suggested approaches and theoretical reflections from the various disciplines.
This innovative edited collection brings together leading scholars from the USA, the UK and mainland Europe to examine how European identity and institutions have been fashioned though interactions with the southern periphery since 1945. It highlights the role played by North African actors in shaping European conceptions of governance, culture and development, considering the construction of Europe as an ideological and politico-economic entity in the process. Split up into three sections that investigate the influence of colonialism on the shaping of post-WWII Europe, the nature of co-operation, dependence and interdependence in the region, and the impact of the Arab Spring, North Africa a...
Die Autorinnen und Autoren dieses Bandes haben eine Reihe von Reden von Spitzenpolitikern zur europäischen Integration aus einer großen Zeitspanne (1946-2020) analysiert, wobei sie jede Rede in ihren zeitgeschichtlichen Kontext gestellt und in den biographischen Hintergrund des Redners eingeordnet haben. Die vergleichende Analyse zeigt, dass es notwendig ist, wieder zu entdecken, dass das Ideal des europäischen Einigungswerks genauso spannend sein kann wie andere nationale geschichtliche Kontroversen. Angesichts eines grassierenden Euroskeptizismus kann eine historische Einordnung und Kontextualisierung der Rolle der Kommunikation der europäischen Integration ein nützliches Instrumentar...