Search results

The integration of Europe has often been seen as bringing prosperity and peace. The European Union has innovated by transcending nationalism and inventing unique forms of cooperative regional governance in which a pluralism of national cultures can flourish. However, in the EU of the early 21st century there are strong disagreements among members exacerbated by a difficult enlargement, voters in several countries rejecting important reforms in national referendums, and chronic legitimacy problems. The financial crisis, labelled the 'greatest crisis in EU history' by EU officials, has increased the uncertainty. The European Union and its Crises: Through the Eyes of the Brussels Elite presents analyses by EU leaders (including administrative leaders in European institutions, European parliamentarians and key political figures) of the great problems and prospects the EU faces.and key political figures) of the great problems and prospects the EU faces.

Philippe Herzog and Jean-Louis Moynot were members of the top leaderships of the Parti Communiste Français (PCF) and the Confédération Générale du Travail (CGT), respectively. Each participated in and lived through the dramatic years from the 1960s through the 1980s when both organizations first supported Union de la Gauche and then turned away from it, eventually precipitating both into decline in ways that would transform eventually the French political and trade union left. The strategic shifts underlying these deep and significant changes were traumatic for those who lived through them. Herzog and Moynot have recently published memoirs detailing their experiences of this period and their political lives thereafter. Both books, in different ways, give us new and important understandings of what happened during a critical moment of change in French politics.