Bo Stråth

Across and beyond Europe, history is being rewritten in the wake of the Cold War's dissolution. An example of this process is the re-evaluation of the part played by resistance movements during World War II in country after country. This book deals with the role of myth and memory in the formation of collective identities with a particular emphasis on national identities. Myth and memory should not be seen as clearly demarcated from history. They are history in ceaseless transformation and reconstruction, the image of the past is continuously reconsidered and reconstituted in the light of an everchanging present. History is an interpretation of the past; not the past as it really was. The key question of this book concerns the role myth and memory play in the construction of communities, and what the distinction between collective myth and memory signifies. The discussion of this question is undertaken in theoretically oriented chapters as well as 15 case studies of national patterns from Scandinavia in the north to Italy and Israel in the south, and from the USA in the west to Russia in the east, as well as local community constructions in working-class districts in Glasgow and Roubaix and the national politics of architecture in Berlin and Rome. This book appears within the framework of a research project on the cultural construction of community in modernisation processes in comparison. This project is a joint enterprise of the European University Institute in Florence and the Humboldt University in Berlin sponsored by the Bank of Sweden Tercentenary Fund.

Historical Patterns in Europe and Beyond

Myth and Memory in the Construction of Community

Explores the pursuit of peace in Europe from the 1815 Congress of Vienna through to the 1951 Paris Treaty and beyond

1815, 1919, 1951

Europe's Utopias of Peace

Małgorzata Pakier

An examination of the role of history and memory is vital in order to better understand why the grand design of a United Europe--with a common foreign policy and market yet enough diversity to allow for cultural and social differences--was overwhelmingly turned down by its citizens. The authors argue that this rejection of the European constitution was to a certain extent a challenge to the current historical grounding used for further integration and further demonstrates the lack of understanding by European bureaucrats of the historical complexity and divisiveness of Europe's past. A critical European history is therefore urgently needed to confront and re-imagine Europe, not as a harmonious continent but as the outcome of violent and bloody conflicts, both within Europe as well as with its Others. As the authors show, these dark shadows of Europe's past must be integrated, and the fact that memories of Europe are contested must be accepted if any new attempts at a United Europe are to be successful.

Contested Histories and Politics of Remembrance

A European Memory?

Hagen Schulz-Forberg

First published in 2010. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

The Hypocrisy of Democracy-Through-Market

The Political History of European Integration

Nina Witoszek

Bo Strath

This volume is designed to bridge a gap in the current theoretical debate about the nature, scope and relevance of postmodern perspectives in the humanist and social sciences in Eastern and Western Europe. While the debate has been reasonably comprehensive and certainly abrasive in Western European and Anglophone countries, it has signally failed to incorporate the viewpoints of Eastern European scholars and intellectuals. Even the current appropriation of Mikhail Bakhtin as a prophet of the postmodern is, paradoxically, a monologic engagement with his thought rather than a dialogic encounter of cultures. Doubtless different historical experiences, ideology and social aspirations go some way to account for the weariness of Eastern Europe with postmodern challenge and its glad embrace by Western scholars. The volume comprises some fifteen essays by leading historians, literary theorists and social scientists from Western and Eastern Europe and America. It has a threefold aim: firstly, to illuminate the distinctiveness of current Western and Eastern European theorizing about history and society; secondly, to reveal points of tension and disagreement, and, finally, to open up a space for a meeting of seemingly incompatible worlds.

Perspectives East and West

The Postmodern Challenge

Øystein Sørensen

The Cultural Construction of Norden

An examination of the role of history and memory is vital in order to better understand why the grand design of a United Europe-with a common foreign policy and market yet enough diversity to allow for cultural and social differences-was overwhelmingly turned down by its citizens. The authors argue that this rejection of the European constitution was to a certain extent a challenge to the current historical grounding used for further integration and further demonstrates the lack of understanding by European bureaucrats of the historical complexity and divisiveness of Europe's past. A critical European history is therefore urgently needed to confront and re-imagine Europe, not as a harmonious continent but as the outcome of violent and bloody conflicts, both within Europe as well as with its Others. As the authors show, these dark shadows of Europe's past must be integrated, and the fact that memories of Europe are contested must be accepted if any new attempts at a United Europe are to be successful.

Lars Magnusson

The aim of this book is to explore the preconditions of a European political economy. The establishment of the monetary union and the European Central Bank constitutes a major step towards greater economic, social and political integration between the Member States of the European Union, and is therefore a momentous event in European history. What do the historically given preconditions of a European political economy mean in practice and theory in terms of future possibilities? With a historical perspective on European monetary integration, from the strains in the dollar-based Bretton Woods order in the 1960s and earlier, the Werner Plan around 1970, and the internal market in the 1980s to the Maastricht Treaty in 1992, future prospects of EMU are discussed. The book is based on the reflections of a working group at the European University Institute in Florence in operation from 1999 to 2001. The fifteen chapters are organised in clusters on the historical and conceptual setting, on financial institutions and economic theory, on social practices and legal framework, and on future prospects. Historians, philosophers, economists, political scientists and sociologists contribute to this interdisciplinary attempt to come to terms with both the preconditions and the prospects of EMU. Contents: Lars Magnusson/Bo Strath: From the Werner Plan to the EMU: In Search of a European Political Economy. Historical Perspectives and Future Prospects--Hubert Zimmermann: The Fall of Bretton Woods and the Emergence of the Werner Plan--Amy Verdun: The Political Economy of the Werner and Delors Reports: Continuity amidst Change or Change amidst Continuity?--David Purdy: Economic Theory and Policy from theKeynesian Revolution to the Third Way--J. Peter Burgess/Bo Strath: Money and Political Economy: From the Werner Plan to the Delors Report and Beyond--Lars Magnusson/Jan Ottosson: The Political Transaction Costs of the Convergence Criteria--The EMU Compromise for the Delors Committee to Maastricht--Sheila C. Dow: The ECB, Banking, Monetary Policy and Unemployment--Roger Hammersland: - We are arrogant because we are good--A Critical Appraisal of Central Banking versus Fiscal Policy in Accomplishing the Community Wide Convergence of the 1980s and 1990s--Ole Bjorn Roste: Labour Markets and the EMU: The Cases of Norway and Sweden--Barbara MacLennan: Finance, Gender and Structural Change in the European Union--Ulrike Liebert: Constructing EMU: Euro-Scepticism and the Emerging European Public Space--Diamond Ashiagbor: EMU and the Shift from a - Social Policy Agenda to an - Employment Policy Agenda in European Labour Law--Ton Notermans: The Werner Plan as a Blueprint for EMU?--Jos de Beus: Are Third Way Social Democrats Friends or Enemies of European Integration? A Tocquevillian Tale on the Politics of Administration--David Purdy: Welfare Reform, Social Citizenship and European Integration--Robert Salais: Filling the Gap between Macroeconomic Policy and Situated Approaches to Employment. A Hidden Agenda for Europe?--Lars Magnusson/Bo Strath: Postscript."

In Search of a Political Economy for Europe

From the Werner Plan to the EMU

Investigating the ideological dimension and exploring the continued impact of Marx, Keynes and Hayek, the authors demonstrate how these three economic narratives became entangled over time and under increasing complexity, overlapping and competing with each other. The book reflects on the meaning of the historical legacy of the three narratives and investigates their significance today. All three outlined the prospects for a better and more economically efficient world with increased social justice. Magnusson and Stråth argue that they constitute a legacy on which a new economic tale must be based, a legacy to draw on or confront.

Tales of Marx, Keynes and Hayek

A Brief History of Political Economy

This book contributes to the debate on what Europe means by demonstrating the complexities and contradictions inherent in the concept. They are seen most clearly when Europe is viewed from a long historical perspective. During the closing decades of the twentieth century Europe emerged as one of the main points of reference in both the cultural and the political constructs of the global community. An obsession with the concept of European identity is readily discernible. This process of identity construction provokes critical questions which the book aims to address. At the same time the book explores the opportunities offered by the concept of Europe to see how it may be used in the construction of the future. The approach is one of both deconstruction and reconstruction. The issue of Europe is closely related in the book to more general issues concerning the cultural construction of community. The book should therefore be seen as the companion of Myth and Memory in the Construction of Community, which is also published by PIE-Peter Lang in the series Multiple Europes. The book appears within the framework of a research project on the cultural construction of community in modernisation processes in comparison. This project is a joint enterprise of the European University Institute in Florence and the Humboldt University in Berlin sponsored by the Bank of Sweden Tercentenary Fund.

Bo Stråth

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