Europe's Contending Identities

Download or read book Europe's Contending Identities written by Andrew C. Gould and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2014-02-17 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How 'European' are Europeans? Is it possible to balance national citizenship with belonging to the European Union overall? Do feelings of citizenship and belonging respond to affiliations to regions, religions or reactionary politics? Unlike previous volumes about identity in Europe, this book offers a more comprehensive view of the range of identities and new arguments about the political processes that shape identity formation. The founders of European integration promised 'an ever closer union'. Nationalists respond that a people should control their own destiny. This book investigates who is winning the debate. The chapters show that attitudes toward broader political communities are changing, that new ideas are gaining ground, and that long-standing trends are possibly reversing course.