Rethinking Europe’s Future is a major reevaluation of Europe’s prospects as it enters the twenty-first century. Summoning the insights of history, political economy, and philosophy, Calleo explains why Europe was for a long time the world’s greatest problem and how the Cold War’s bipolar partition brought stable resolution of a sort. Without the Cold War, Europe risks revisiting its more traditional history. With such volatile surroundings – in particular Russia and Europe’s Muslim neighbors – no one, Calleo argues, can pretend to predict the future with assurance. Calleo’s book ponders how to think about this future.
It begins by considering rival “lessons” and trends that emerge from Europe’s “living past.” It goes on to discuss the theories for managing Europe’s traditional state system, how that system was affected by the transition from autocratic states to communitarian nation states, reasons for the enduring strength of nation states, and their uneasy relationship with capitalism. Calleo next focuses on the Cold War’s dynamic legacies for Europe – an Atlantic Alliance, a European Union, and a global economy. These three legacies form systems that now compete to define the future.
The book’s third and major section examines how Europe has tried to meet the present challenges of Russian weakness and German reunification. Succeeding chapters focus on Maastricht and the Euro, on how globalization appears to affect Europeanization, and on the EU’s unfinished business – expanding into ”Pan Europe,” adapting its hybrid constitution to the expansion, and creating a new security system for this widened Europe. Calleo presents three models for the new Europe – each proposing a different relationship with the U.S. and Russia. A final chapter considers how a strong European Union might affect the world and the prospects for American hegemony. A beautifully written book offering insight into a critical moment of history, whose outcomes are likely to shape the world long after our time.
‘Many readers are likely to disagree with Calleo’s recommendations for a strong, contained European Union. In the eyes of many politicians and academics, expansion seems desirable. Yet, most readers will surely acknowledge the merits of the book: a recommendable effort to link past and future, an unusual attention to intellectual and geopolitical currents, and a somewhat unfashionable (and therefore audacious) interpretation of the limits of enlargement.’
– Francesco Duina, American Political Science Review, September 2002