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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.
List of contents
Contents: Bo Stråth: Introduction: Europe as a Discourse - Luisa Passerini: The Last Identification: Why Some of Us Would Like to Call Ourselves Europeans and What We Mean by This - Hayden White: The Discourse of Europe and the Search for a European Identity - Lutz Niethammer: A European Identity? - Peter Burke: Foundation Myths and Collective Identities in Early Modern Europe - Katiana Orluc: Decline or Renaissance: The Transformation of European Consciousness after the First World War - Erik Tängerstad: «The Third World» as an Element in the Collective Construction of a Post-Colonial European Identity - Silvia Sebastiani: Race as a Construction of the Other: «Native Americans» and «Negroes» in the 18th Century Editions of the Encyclopædia Britannica - Gerold Gerber: Doing Christianity and Europe: An Inquiry into Memory, Boundary and Truth Practices in Malta - Patrizia Isabelle Nanz: In-between Nations: Ambivalence and the Making of a European Identity - Svetlana Boym: Leningrad into St. Petersburg: The Dream of Europe on the Margins - Martin Marcussen/Klaus Roscher: The Social Construction of «Europe»: Life-Cycles of Nation-State Identities in France, Germany and Great Britain - Bo Stråth: The Swedish Image of Europe as the Other - Bo Stråth: Multiple Europes: Integration, Identity and Demarcation to the Other - J. Peter Burgess: Coal, Steel and Spirit. The Double Reading of European Unity (1948-1951).
About the author
Bo Strth is Finnish Academy Distinguished Professor in Nordic, European and World History at the University of Helsinki. He was 1997-2007 Professor of Contemporary history at the European University Institute and 1990-1996 Professor of History at Gothenburg University.
Report
«This, on the whole is a thorough and interesting account of a fascinating debate. The collection's strength lies in its variety and interesting choices of case study. A strong editorial line is maintained throughout ensuring that even the most eclectic of case study is fully relevant to the subject in hand.» (Lisa Hunt, Journal of European Area Studies)
