Project Europe: A New History of the European Union

Today, the EU seems to be in an existential crisis. Against this backdrop, the early history of European integration since the 1950s shines all the brighter. But is this an appropriate assessment? Kiran Patel  analyzes the concrete effects and results of European integration and what we can learn from the past for our present day, summarizing some of the key findings of his monograph on the topic (presently available in German; an English version is forthcoming).

Kiran Klaus Patel is professor and chair of European and global history at Maastricht University where he also serves as head of department. His latest publications include: Projekt Europa. Eine kritische Geschichte (Munich: Beck, 2018); The New Deal: A Global History (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2016); European Integration and the Atlantic Community in the 1980s (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013; ed. with Kenneth Weisbrode); and The Historical Foundations of EU Competition Law (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013; ed. with Heike Schweitzer).

This lecture is part of the Gerda Henkel Lecture Series, organized by GHI West, the Pacific Regional Office of the Germany Historical Institute, Washington DC, in cooperation with the Gerda Henkel Foundation. The program brings German historians to the West Coast to present their research and engage in dialogue with their North American colleagues.