When the history of the 20th century is written, the process of European integration will figure as a major feature in the development of Western Europe. It will not be because it prevented a future war – the looming presence of the Soviet Union was sufficient to stop any local adventure in that direction – but because it anchored an era of unparalleled prosperity and because it lay the foundation for the democratic transformation of East Central Europe once the Cold War was over. The term ‘European integration’ has been used to describe these events, as though there was a single unbroken trail of successes, and the occasional setback, leading to the European Union of today. And since there appears to be a sequence to these developments, there is always a ‘process’ to explain them. History is rarely so tidy.

Alongside the early treaties founding the European Coal and Steel Community (1951) and the European Economic Communities (1957) there existed other regional experiments at integration (in the sense of growing together, or becoming more interdependent), including the Organisation for European Economic Cooperation (1948) and the European Free Trade Association (1960), which have tended to fade from view, as well as the ill-fated attempt by the original six Coal and Steel Community members to create a European defence community and a European political community (1952-1955).

History is written in different ways and in different waves at different times. Almost before the dust has settled on a particular episode of the past a rash of publications appears that capture, analyse, explain and place in context what has just happened, very often before the outcome is known and the full impact appreciated. These are mostly based on the open record and after the initial splash the output gradually eddies until public interest wanes altogether. This is what we may call ‘contemporaneous history’. There is nothing wrong with it, and when spiced up with a dollop of theory, many have become classics of their kind.

A second wave then begins to emerge as the participants in the events, or their biographers or ghost-writers, start to place themselves into the flow of history to demonstrate how their presence in the story may have nudged the tide in this direction or that.