The Rise and Fall of the European Defence Community

Know about the book -

The Rise and Fall of the European Defence Community is written by K. Ruane and published by Springer. It's available with International Standard Book Number or ISBN identification 0230599087 (ISBN 10) and 9780230599086 (ISBN 13).

Using the European Defence Community (EDC) as a case-study, this book examines the competing and often conflicting view of the British and American governments towards European integration in the early 1950s. The British, fearing an 'agonizing reappraisal' of the American defence commitment to Europe if the supranational EDC failed, went to great lengths to ensure the success of the scheme. When, despite these efforts, the EDC finally collapsed in August 1954, NATO was plunged into arguably the most severe crisis in its history. The crisis also possessed an Anglo-American dimension, with London and Washington badly divided on how it should be resolved. In the end, the British were instrumental in the creation of the Western European Union as a successor to the EDC. Their crisis management, however, had been rooted in fear of the 'agonizing reappraisal', a danger dismissed by many historians as exaggerated but which the British, in 1954, were perhaps right to take seriously.