I am an EU citizen and I’ve realized that I have little understanding of what EU is, how it works and how it came about. While researching the topic I’ve stumbled over Jean Monnet.
I guess the general approach is: Look for a surprising development (e.g. Europe suddenly overcoming old enmities) and research it. If change happened, there were people involved. Some of them had more impact, some of them less and some of them have even wrote down their thoughts and experiences.
Here are some interesting people and developments that may or may not prove fruitful to research: Unification movements (German unification, Bismarck, Zollverein etc., Italian unification, US federation); Peace of Westphalia (liberal outcome from an extreme polarization—each side literally thought that the other side sides with the devil); Second International and its failure to prevent WWI; enlightened monarchs (Peter the Great, Friedrich the Great, Joseph II., Deng Xiaoping, Park Chung-Hee etc.); decolonization, why it led to chaos and why Botswana is an exception (Seretse Khama, maybe); Vergangenheitsbewältigung—why it succeeded in Germany, but not, say, in Turkey; creation of modern international organizations, e.g. International Criminal Court.
I am an EU citizen and I’ve realized that I have little understanding of what EU is, how it works and how it came about. While researching the topic I’ve stumbled over Jean Monnet.
I guess the general approach is: Look for a surprising development (e.g. Europe suddenly overcoming old enmities) and research it. If change happened, there were people involved. Some of them had more impact, some of them less and some of them have even wrote down their thoughts and experiences.
Here are some interesting people and developments that may or may not prove fruitful to research: Unification movements (German unification, Bismarck, Zollverein etc., Italian unification, US federation); Peace of Westphalia (liberal outcome from an extreme polarization—each side literally thought that the other side sides with the devil); Second International and its failure to prevent WWI; enlightened monarchs (Peter the Great, Friedrich the Great, Joseph II., Deng Xiaoping, Park Chung-Hee etc.); decolonization, why it led to chaos and why Botswana is an exception (Seretse Khama, maybe); Vergangenheitsbewältigung—why it succeeded in Germany, but not, say, in Turkey; creation of modern international organizations, e.g. International Criminal Court.
Thank you very much! This is very helpful to me right now!