European Rescue of the Nation-State? Tracing the Role of Economics and Business

Abstract

The history of European integration has been so deeply influenced by the economic history of Europe after 1945 as to make the two inseparable. There is little doubt that the successful reconstruction of the western European economy and the economic boom that lasted until 1973 facilitated the various integration initiatives of the 1950s and 1960s. At the same time, these initiatives were crucial to the very economic success of western Europe. Thus, it is not surprising that the majority of successful integration initiatives were of an economic nature, whether it was the establishment of the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC), the creation of a common market for agricultural and industrial goods in the European Economic Community (EEC) or the more recent formation of Economic and Monetary Union (EMU). The historiography of European integration reflects this central importance of the economic dimension of European integration. A significant number of important publications deal with this subject, most notably those by the British economic historian Alan S. Milward (1984, 1992). However, as this chapter demonstrates, there has been little connection between much of this economic historiography of integration and international and diplomatic historiography, the latter having largely dominated the general historiography of the integration process.