Pioneers of European Integration and Peace, 1945-1963: A Brief History with Documents (The Bedford Series in History And Culture)

After the devastation of the Second World War, Western European leaders worked together to achieve what had eluded their predecessors after World War I: a lasting peace. Between 1945 and 1963, visionary men such as France's Jean Monnet and Robert Schuman, Belgium's Paul-Henri Spaak, and West Germany's Konrad Adenauer laid the foundation for the creation of the European Union. In so doing, they inaugurated what has been a sixty-year period of peace and increasing cooperation among nations that had engaged each other repeatedly in warfare. Sherrill Brown Wells's collection of primary documents takes students through the evolution of European integration in the critical early years. Her cogent introduction describes the thinking and motivations of the most influential pioneers of European integration. Document headnotes, a glossary of acronyms and key figures, a chronology, questions for consideration, and a selected bibliography offer additional pedagogical support.