Abstract

This chapter reviews the historiography of European integration, focusing on how scholars have interpreted the process and explained key events and developments. It first considers the federalist narrative and its critique of intergovernmentalism, along with its claim that the Hague Congress of 1948 and the European Defence Community of the early 1950s were great opportunities lost; the nation state was in long-term decline; and the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) and the European Economic Community (EEC) presaged the eventual emergence of a United States of Europe. At the same time, some scholars and analysts of the European Community (EC) presented a more realistic picture of the process of European integration that foreshadowed the revisionism of Alan Milward in the 1980s. The chapter also examines the views of scholars such as Altiero Spinelli, Jean Monnet, Robert Schuman, and John Gillingham.