William Outhwaite - Contemporary Europe

Contemporary Europe — read online for free the complete book (whole text) full work

Below is the text of the book, divided by pages. System saving the place of the last page read, allows you to conveniently read the book "Contemporary Europe" online for free, without having to search again every time where you left off. Put a bookmark, and you can go to the page where you finished reading at any time.

Light

Font size:

↓

↑

Georgia Tahoma Arial Verdana

Reset

Interval:

↓

↑

Bookmark:

Make

1234567...54

In the current political climate, it has become increasingly common to suggest that we are witnessing the end of the European project. Eurosceptic attitudes are widespread, not only in the UK but also in continental Europe, including in those countries that have traditionally been regarded as Europhile or pro-European. In this tension-laden and crisis-ridden context, more and more people seem to take the view that European matters notably, European politics are, at best, boring or, at worst, largely irrelevant to our lives. William Outhwaite is to be applauded for having done a superb job in deconstructing this prevalent misconception. His book is a powerful reminder of the fact that, in order to face up to the key civilizational challenges of our time, we need more, rather than less, pan-European and, indeed, global co-operation.

Dr Simon Susen, Reader in Sociology, City University London

The European Union is at a critical stage of its evolution. It is more necessary than ever to understand the nature of the enterprise, to situate it in relation both to European developments generally and to the world at large. William Outhwaite, an established and astute commentator on contemporary Europe, in this succinct and highly readable book, provides all the necessary historical and theoretical tools for the job.

Krishan Kumar, Professor of Sociology, University of Virginia

Refreshingly, this is a book about Europe in its proper sense, which means Europe in more than one sense. The discussion of the European Union as a transnational form of governance that intersects and doubles-up with nation-state governance obviously looms large in William Outhwaites narrative of Contemporary Europe. Tellingly, the authors alternative title for his book was Europe and the European Region in the Age of the European Union. The EU therefore qualifies what Europe is nowadays, but neither defines nor exhausts it. The coherent pursuit of this line of interpretation (not an obvious one in the current panorama of European studies) makes this socio-political-historical account of the European region and of its peoples both interesting and distinctive.

In engaging and thoughtful style, Outhwaite offers an interdisciplinary panorama of what Europe has become, particularly as the effect of the end of the Cold War and the process of European integration. The book therefore examines the Europe of the EU and the Europe outside it, well aware that these two areas have been continuously changing in both their borders and self-understandings. But geopolitics is not the only way in which different Europes are defined in this book. Outhwaite illustrates in rapid prose and colourful figures how the continent has been dramatically reshaped economically, institutionally, politically, territorially, and demographically, in the course of the last few decades.

A tour de force that remains critical of the (ir)resistible progress of European integration, and of the place of Europe in the world, but nevertheless confident that there is something valuable in the present European experience. Contemporary Europe is both a lively introduction to European studies, and a shrewd reflection on their multi-faced object of investigation.

Dr Dario Castiglione, Associate Professor of Politics, Exeter University

Outhwaites Contemporary Europe is a critical diagnosis of one of the most advanced political projects after World War II. The book is one of the two or three great books on Europe. It takes reality as seriously as the dream of European Unification. Insisting in particular that the dream is one of democratic growth, the present reality looks gloomy but not hopeless. There are already unique institutional advances of transnational democracy. Today they are under sharp restriction and hegemonic control, but restrictions and controls can be overcome, and the present crisis, therefore, is a great but probably the last chance of Europe.

Hauke Brunkhorst, Professor of Sociology and Head of the Institute of Sociology at the University of Flensburg, Germany

Contemporary Europe

Europe is one of the most dynamic and interesting areas of the world, pioneering in the European Union a new form of governance for half a billion people, represented in the worlds first directly elected transnational parliament. This book situates the European Union in a broader European, global, historical and geographical context, providing a readable presentation of the most important facts and drawing on the theoretical approaches which have transformed the study of contemporary Europe over the past two decades.

The European Union is still on the road to what has been called an unknown destination, and this book presents its economic, political, legal and social trajectory from the middle of the last century to the present. Contemporary Europe covers some of these issues in an interdisciplinary framework, aiming to situate the development of the European Union in a broader context of pan-European and global processes. Europe has been cut down to size, but it does not have to become a global backwater, and the study of contemporary Europes institutional reality does not have to be boring. The book counters this misperception, conveying the essential facts and theories of contemporary European reality in a clear and approachable analysis. It will serve as a readable introduction both to the academic field of European studies and to contemporary Europe itself.

William Outhwaite, FAcSS, Emeritus Professor of Sociology at Newcastle University, is the author of European Society (Polity 2008), Critical Theory and Contemporary Europe (Continuum 2012), Europe Since 1989 (Routledge 2016), and a large number of journal articles and book chapters on contemporary Europe. He taught European studies and the sociology of contemporary Europe at the University of Sussex (in the School of European Studies) and Newcastle University (in the School of Geography, Politics and Sociology). He is an associate editor of the European Journal of Social Theory and European Societies, the journal of the European Sociological Association, and is a member of editorial boards of a number of other journals.

I dedicate the book to the memory of Chris Rumford (19582016), from whom I also learned much about contemporary Europe.

Contemporary Europe

William Outhwaite

First published 2017

by Routledge

2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN

and by Routledge

711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

2017 William Outhwaite

The right of William Outhwaite to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.

Next page

1234567...54

Light

Font size:

↓

↑

Georgia Tahoma Arial Verdana

Reset

Interval:

↓

↑

Bookmark:

Make

Similar books «Contemporary Europe»

Look at similar books to Contemporary Europe. We have selected literature similar in name and meaning in the hope of providing readers with more options to find new, interesting, not yet read works.

William Outhwaite

Europe Since 1989: Transitions and Transformations

William E. Rosenbach

Contemporary Issues in Leadership

William Outhwaite

Transregional Europe

Siobhan Kattago

Memory and Representation in Contemporary Europe: The Persistence of the Past

Mariana Liz

Euro-Visions: Europe in Contemporary Cinema

William Outhwaite

European Society

William Outhwaite

Critical Theory and Contemporary Europe

William Chester Jordan

Europe in the High Middle Ages

William Outhwaite

Social Theory: Ideas in Profile

William Outhwaite (ed.)

Brexit: Sociological Responses

William Outhwaite

Habermas: A Critical Introduction

William T. Vollmann

Europe Central

Discussion, reviews of the book Contemporary Europe and just readers' own opinions. Leave your comments, write what you think about the work, its meaning or the main characters. Specify what exactly you liked and what you didn't like, and why you think so.