The history of Britain's complex relationship with Europe, untangled Is Britain a part of Europe? The British have been ambivalent on this question since the Second World War, when the Western European nations sought to prevent the return of fascism by creating strong international ties throughout the Continent. Britain reluctantly joined the Common Market, the European Community, and ultimately the European Union, but its decades of membership never quite led it to accept a European orientation. In the view of the distinguished political scientist Vernon Bogdanor, the question of Britain’s relationship to Europe is rooted in “the prime conflict of our time,” the dispute between the competing faiths of liberalism and nationalism. This concise, expertly guided tour provides the essential background to the struggle over Brexit.

This engaging and concise new edition offers the student and general reader a compact, readable treatment of British membership of the European Union (EU) from 1973 up until the present day and Brexit, with detailed analysis of the period 1945-1972 accounting for Britain's absence from the formation of the EU. It provides a highly distilled and accessible analysis and overview of some of the parameters and recurring features of Britain’s membership of the European Union, touching on all the major facets of membership at this critical time in Britain’s relationship with Europe. Key features of the new edition: examines the constant and changing character of British membership of the EU; discusses the problematical and often paradoxical features of EU membership; familiarises the reader with both academic and public debates about the subject; offers thematic treatment of all aspects of policy and attitudes towards the EU; significantly restructured and updated to include the origins of the decision to hold a referendum on UK membership of the EU, the campaign, explanations for its outcome, and the course, substance and implications of the UK-EU Brexit negotiations. This book will be of key interest to scholars, students and the generally interested reader in the areas of European Politics/Studies, British Politics, EU Politics/Studies, Area Studies and International Relations.

How and why did Britain become involved in the First World War? Taking into account the scholarship of the last twenty-five years, this second edition of Zara S. Steiner's classic study, thoroughly revised with Keith Neilson, explores a subject which is as highly contentious as ever. While retaining the basic argument that Britain went to war in 1914 not as a result of internal pressures but as a response to external events, Steiner and Neilson reject recent arguments that Britain became involved because of fears of an 'invented' German menace, or to defend her Empire. Instead, placing greater emphasis than before on the role of Russia, the authors convincingly argue that Britain entered the war in order to preserve the European balance of power and the nation's favourable position within it. Lucid and comprehensive, Britain and the Origins of the First World War brings together the bureaucratic, diplomatic, economic, strategical and ideological factors that led to Britain's entry into the Great War, and remains the most complete survey of the pre-war situation.

This revised second edition now extends to the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century, covering the financial crisis and the related crisis in European integration, the impact of the “War on Terror” on Europe, and the redefinition of Europe following EU enlargement. Thoroughly revised and expanded, this integrated history of Europe now covers the end of the Second World War up to the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century Includes new sections on immigration and ethnicity in Europe after the Cold War, and the role of historical memory in contemporary Europe A final new chapter assesses the role of Europe within the wider world of the twenty-first century, the financial crisis and the related crisis in European integration, the impact of the “War on Terror” on Europe, and the redefinition of Europe following EU enlargement Covers the history of central and eastern Europe in depth, as well as that of Western Europe Discusses in detail the impact of the Cold War across the continent

Addresses a question that has remained unanswered since the end of World War II: is Britain a European country? Rewriting the inside history of Britain and the European Union, each phase of the history in this book is built around the role of a single character, starting with Churchill and concluding with Tony Blair. The narrative is also built around the careers of Ernest Bevin, Harold Macmillan, Edward Heath, Roy Jenkins and Margaret Thatcher.

In its totality, the “Long Second World War”—extending from the beginning of the Spanish Civil War to the end of hostilities in 1945—has exerted enormous influence over European culture. Bringing together leading historians, sociologists, and literary and film scholars, this broadly interdisciplinary volume investigates Europeans’ individual and collective memories and the ways in which they have shaped the continent’s cultural heritage. Focusing on the major combatant nations—Spain, Britain, France, Italy, Germany, Poland, and Russia—it offers thoroughly contextualized explorations of novels, memoirs, films, and a host of other cultural forms to illuminate European public memory.

A fascinating new account of Britain's uneasy relationship with the European continent since the end of the Second World War, set against the backdrop of decolonization, the Cold War and the Anglo-American relationship. Benjamin Grob-Fitzgibbon charts Britain's evolution from an island of imperial Europeans to one of post-imperial Eurosceptics.