Contemporary Europe and the Atlantic Alliance

This book examines the development of European states from the late 1950s up-to the present. It opens in 1958, the year when the European Economic Community became operative, marking the start of a new focus on questions surrounding the drive for European integration. The authors use their understanding of the cultural and historical context of developments to explain the diverse responses amongst European states to the internal and external pressures and opportunities of the decades that followed. Their broad-ranging narrative provides historical analysis of major ideas and events such as the evolution and collapse of the Cold War; the rise of the New Left and New Right groups; the changing role of NATO and security issues in general; European cultural "Americanization"; and the continuing debates on the ideal nature of Europe itself. Throughout the book, analysis of events in Europe is framed within the context of the continent's global ties, and, crucially, its relationship with the United States of America through the "Atlantic Alliance". The authors explain the ways in which Europe's position has evolved in accordance with its all-important US links, and, in the final chapter, suggest how it might develop in the future.