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Abstract
The story of European integration has been transformed by recent scholarship, from a heroic and progressive narrative towards a more nuanced version emphasising interaction between individuals, institutions and Member States – with no pre-defined trajectory. This article reviews the key works which have reshaped the historiography of European integration

This review article assesses recent advances in European integration history. It demonstrates that in recent years, research angles have multiplied and thus complicated our understanding of the historical phenomenon at stake. It also argues that it is for this very reason that the field has become more relevant for broader questions of contemporary historical research. While presenting individual studies and tendencies within the field, this review article therefore understands itself to be a plea to forge stronger links between various areas of research.

After the Second World War, in line with its new strategic choice Luxembourg resolutely set out on the road to international multilateralism and European integration, being in 1951 one of the six founding members of the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC), and in 1952 - the workplace of the newly established European Community institutions. Since then, Luxembourg has played and continues to act as a mediator and a force for ideas in the EU, either as a member State, or through some of its leaders (including Joseph Bech, Pierre Werner, Gaston Thorn, Jacques Santer, Jean-Claude Juncker). Based on a wide range of sources from public and private archives, this presentation aims to illustrate how the Grand-Duchy had become a master of small states diplomacy and a consensus builder in the European integration history, and to demonstrate that the influential nature if its leadership gave Luxembourg a role that far outweighed the country's socio-economic impact.

Researching the history of the establishment and development of the European integration process, as well as the legal nature of the European Union, we have seen that in the scientific literature there is very little information not only on the use of imperial experience in the integration process, but also on the concept of imperial federalism, which used to be rather popular at the end of ХIX and in the early twentieth century in the European empires. If in the English-language literature one can find a lot of literature on the theory and practice of imperial federalism in Great Britain, similar studies concerning the German and Austro-Hungarian empires practically had not been not carried out. Much more often it is possible to find out books about the German or Austrian federalism, but they generally deal with selected current issues or with the functioning of German or Austria federalism overall. In consideration of the importance of Germany in the European Union's development and functioning, it seems clear that the study of the German experience of integration within the framework of the German Empire under the Constitution of 1871 is long overdue. The purpose of the paper is to provide an overview and to close another gap in the literature on the role of the imperial concept of federalism in the development of modern integration process in Europe.