From Isolation to Centrality: Contemporary History Meets European Studies

Abstract

Any discussion of the historiography of European integration needs to address its integration within the larger discipline of (Modern) European history since the French Revolution, especially its contemporary history since World War II, its linkages with other disciplines with a focus on the present-day European Union (EU), and the benefits and pitfalls of cross-disciplinarity. This is understood here in a general sense as the attempt to overcome disciplinary boundaries to better understand the complexities of European integration and EU politics. Arguably, this dimension of research on integration history is especially crucial as this historical sub-field on the whole has been quite isolated within Modern European history and European Studies. With the exception of a few monographs like Alan S. Milward’s (1992) revisionist account, most works on European integration history including the edited books published by the Liaison Committee and articles in the specialized Journal of European Integration History (JEIH) are seldom referenced in general histories of twentieth century or post-war Europe or, for that matter, by social scientists working on the EU. As we will see below, this sorry state of affairs to some extent reflects the weaknesses of these genres and research traditions. To an equally large extent, however, it is due to the fact that for a long time, much research on the history of European integration, especially the federalist hurrah historiography and the conventional diplomatic history of interstate negotiations, has been conceptually underdeveloped.