The Passage to Europe: How a Continent Became a Union

This supremely erudite account of Europe's transformation by van Middelaar (Politicide), a Dutch philosopher and advisor to the European Council president, demonstrates that integration "failed to put an end to power politics between member states," with continual crises testing the legitimacy of the union since the 1950s. Charles de Gaulle's instinctive realpolitik made him fiercely protective of French sovereignty, leading to a constitutional crisis in 1966 . Other quandaries%E2%80%94whether a European Army was desirable and practicable to face the Soviet Union , or how best to navigate German reunification after 1989 %E2%80%94make the author pose an apt question: "Is Europe real, or does it exist only on paper?" Otherwise brilliant, the book suffers from the philosopher's instinct toward the abstract over the concrete. Van Middelaar writes awkwardly of the continent's citizens as an amorphous mass, referring to the creation of a "new European public that speaks in unison." When chances do arise to explore public opinion as the product of flesh-and-blood humans%E2%80%94a challenge to the Maastricht Treaty in the German Constitutional Court being a salient opportunity%E2%80%94van Middelaar retreats into political theory . Nevertheless, his encyclopedic knowledge of and intimacy with European affairs will make even a specialist blush with envy. (Aug.)