Policies of Bevin, Churchill, Eden, Macmillan and Wilson towards Europe

Britain, France and the Struggle for Leadership in the European Union
By Anthony Adamthwaite

This book takes a fresh look at British responses to European unity, challenging standard assumptions that Brits were not interested in Europe and that governments did the best they could in seeking to balance worldwide interests. By contrast, the author argues that the American alliance distracted leaders from other policy options. An Anglo-French alliance could have reconfigured Euro-American relations, offsetting the shrinking of power.

As well as reassessing the policies of Bevin, Churchill, Eden, Macmillan and Wilson towards Europe the book highlights a dimension neglected by the literature - the impact of the post-1945 revolution in international affairs on a run-down, overloaded Whitehall engine room which lacked the capacity for forward strategic thinking. This analysis, unlike many accounts that focus almost wholly on British decision-making, investigates French attitudes and the dynamics of the mesentente cordiale. ISBN: 9780415365635 Published June 01 2009 by Routledge.

The Politics and Memory of Democratic Transition The Spanish Model
Edited by Diego Muro, Gregorio Alonso

Spain’s political transition to democracy is often lauded as the benchmark by which many other countries explicitly declared to have measured their own democratic progress. 2008 marks the 30th Anniversary of the Spanish Constitution, and public interest in the democratization, transition, and comparative politics of this period is higher than ever before. Designed to evaluate the paradigmatic view of the Spanish transition as an ideal model for political and social change, this new and innovative volume appraises the movement towards a more democratic Spain from a variety of important perspectives including the selection of an electoral system, the role of the church, the effect of the European Community, the output of cultural products such as cinema and television, the Basque experience, and the "Pact of Oblivion," an unwritten agreement not to prosecute those involved in abuses committed by the Francoist regime.

By making comparisons to other democratic transitions, synthesizing the ideas of several leading Spanish History scholars, as well as incorporating new voices involved in creating the directions of research to come, The Spanish Model offers a thorough and vital look at this key period in contemporary Spanish history, taking stock of critical lessons to be gleaned from the Spanish Transition, and pointing the way toward its future as a democratic nation. ISBN: 9780415997201 Published June 01 2009 by Routledge.