The European Sisyphus: Essays on Europe, 1964-1994

Bringing together all of Stanley Hoffmann's significant essays on the development and difficulties of European integration, this collection highlights the intractability of the divisions that plagued the European Union from its very beginning. Just as the process of integration has displayed the same ambiguities, hesitations, and failings over the years, so have Hoffmann's general preoccupations and emphases remained constant.These essays provide a view of evolution and change as well as an examination of the crises and turning points in the history of European integration. Hoffmann chronicles the ebb and flow of the process from the time of Charles de Gaulle's challenge to Jean Monnet's conception of supranational integration through the 1970s “period of stagnation” and on to the 1992 single-market program and the Maastricht Treaty.Scholars will welcome the opportunity to have Hoffmann's analyses—most long unavailable—within one volume. Students will find Hoffmann's consistent and cohesive vision an invaluable guide to understanding the evolution of European union.