Customer Reviews

The European Union: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions)

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

It is a good book. If you are looking for an introduction without getting into long theoretical discussions. The merit of this book is its simplicity. It tells the story of the European Union without leaving any of the main topics out. It reads easily. Has a few very useful charts and photographs. Its up to date, year 2001; I could not find another book that would bring the reader up to the launching of the Euro! The only reason it does not get five stars is that it is only a short introductory study and as a consequence it lacks depths, otherwise its a great book!

Pinder does a good job at taking a complex subject and distilling it to its essential elements. It won't surprise readers of this publisher that the author's perspective is almost entirely British. The author is also very favorably disposed toward the EU and does not provide "equal time" for the other side. That is his prerogative, of course, but it does not detract from the book.

Pinder launches into this short commentary with the in-depth historical foundation of the EU's formation. This is well brought up to date with the reasons for, and the outcome of, the different recent European Treaties. This is a must for anyone - who, like me, has/had a limited understanding of an important topic. A good concise introduction.

Most Americans know more about the operation of the Starship Enterprise than about the structure of the European Union. More of the history of Hobbitland than the history of the EU. Sorry, folks, if this seems to be a snarky generalization or a denigration of your electoral capacities! It IS a blatant generalization, but deep in your hearts, can't you admit that it's true? In any case, here's a book that will slip into your purse or pants-pocket and still leave room for your passport -- 200 pages, roughly 3" x 5" -- which will bring you up to speed on America's most important diplomatic and economic partner. It's not a gracefully-written book; the prose is what you'd expect from two professors of Political Science. But it's concise, well documented, forthright in its 'federalist' sympathies, and fair to the positions of those Europeans who are not entirely pleased with the evolution of the EU.

Possibly the chapter titles will offer some idea of the scope of this 'short introduction':

1) What the EU is for

2) How the EU was made

3) How the EU is governed

4) Single market, single currency

5) Agriculture, regions, budgets: conflicts over who gets what

6) Social policy, environmental policy

7) "An area of freedom, security and justice"

8) A great civilian power ... and more, or less?

9) The EU and the rest of Europe

10) The EU in the world

11) Much accomplished... but what next?

Uf ta! That's a lot of stuff for such a tiny book! You'll have to expect it to be dense and difficult. You'll have to tax your memory from chapter to chapter, because there's no space for reiteration, and you'll have to keep you thumb on the page of alphabetical abbreviations. But the EU is not going away, my friends, and increasingly the USA will be compelled to negotiate/cooperate/imitate/integrate its economy and policy with it. The EU may be a much younger sibling of the USA, in terms of federal constitutional government, but it represents a vastly more mature civic tradition in every other way.

The book could be more lucid, though in fact the structure of the EU is inherently imprecise and ruled by tacit gentlemen's consensuses, not unlike the 'unwritten constitution' of the UK. And I suppose it could be more entertaining without losing its integrity. That's why I'm giving it only four stars. Nonetheless, I strongly recommend it.

This book is very short and very small, but the authors make up for its size with an easily readable and understandable primer on the European Union. This is an excellent companion for any student interested in learning the basics of the European Union. It was required as part of a course on West-European Politics. The authors break the book up into a number of sections, each describing different aspects of the institution.

I have to agree with the one-star reviewer about how this book is a little too "Academic". However, I think this is a good and bad thing. First, if you are looking for an "Idiot's Guide..." or "Dummies" version of the European Union then this book is not for you. However, since it is a short book I found it was a good tool to look up definitions and found out what was truly meant by "federalist", "intergovernmentalist", etc. In that way I expanded my horizons on politics and government without being daunted by a 300+ page tome.

To conclude, the book is not truly academic, but requires some research by the reader to become more accessible, unless they are already familiar with a lot of political jargon.

As a side note, I have read three of these "Very Short Introductions" and I'm beginning to find that a well written Wikipedia article is just as good a resource and $10 cheaper.

As a journalist beginning a study of the EU, I was sorely disappointed in the presentation and writing of this book.

Although it's billed as being "accessible" and written in "plain English," it's not. It reads as if it were written for academic insiders. Sentences are long, convoluted and unclear. Try out this paragraph, for example:

"One should not underestimate the role that the governments retain in the Union's affairs, with their power of decision in the Council that represents the member states and their monopoly of the ultima ratio of armed force. But other approaches, including those known as neo-functionalism and federalism, give more weight than the intergovernmentalists to the European institutions."

Such language hits the reader as early as page 6.

The text also bogs down in details that seem unnecessary for an introductory understanding of the subject. Such lack of focus is distracting.

I ended up grasping the basic ideas that this book was trying to teach -- but only after abandoning it for better-written material.