Integration is the most significant European historical development in the past fifty years, eclipsing in importance even the collapse of the USSR. This movement toward economic and political union has not only helped revive, transform and rejuvenate a battered civilization; it is opening the way to a promising future. Yet, until now, no satisfactory explanation is to be found in any single book as to why integration is significant, how it originated and has developed, how it has changed and continues to change Europe, and where it is headed. John Gillingham is a professor of history at the...

This is the first large-scale historical investigation of the critical first stage of European integration, the creation of the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC). John Gillingham discusses the thirty year Franco-German struggle for heavy industry mastery in Western Europe, describes the dreams and schemes of Jean Monnet, who designed the heavy industry pool, reveals the American vision that inspired his work, and discloses how his transatlantic partners used their great authority to assure its completion. Gillingham also lays bare the operating mechanisms of the coal-steel pool,...

Integration is the most significant European historical development in the past fifty years, eclipsing in importance even the collapse of the USSR. This movement toward economic and political union has not only helped revive, transform and rejuvenate a battered civilization; it is opening the way to a promising future. Yet, until now, no satisfactory explanation is to be found in any single book as to why integration is significant, how it originated and has developed, how it has changed and continues to change Europe, and where it is headed. John Gillingham is a professor of history at the...

From bestselling author Danny Danziger and medieval expert John Gillingham comes a vivid look at the signing of the Magna Carta and how this event illuminates one of the most compelling and romantic periods in history.

Surveying a broad landscape through a narrow lens, 1215 sweeps readers back eight centuries in an absorbing portrait of life during a time of global upheaval, the ripples of which can still be felt today. At the center of this fascinating period is the document that has become the root of modern freedom: the Magna Carta. It was a time of political revolution and...

The Battle Conference celebrated its quarter-centenary in 2002 in Glasgow, and this volume, while ranging from Norman Sicily to Scandinavia, has a particular focus on Scottish themes. There are six papers on aspects of Scottish history from the eleventh to the early thirteenth century: on kings and their followers, on the building of burghs, and on the border abbey churches. Charters (Norman, Anglo-Norman and Scottish) represent another focus. In addition to papers discussing problems of authenticity and the implications of forgery, several others use charter evidence to shed new light on...

The emphasis in this collection of recent work on the Anglo-Norman realm is particularly on narrative sources: Dudo, Vita AEdwardi Regis, monastic chronicle audiences in the Fens, the chronicles of Anjou, the Warenne view of the past - and much later sources for stereotypical images of the Normans. There are also papers analysing both charter and chronicle evidence in reconsiderations of the succession disputes following the deaths of William I and William II. Papers range geographically from Anjou to the Irish Sea zone. Contributors, from France and Germany as well as from Britain, Ireland...

This volume contains the usual wide range of topics, and offers some unusual and provocative perspectives, including an examination of what the evidence of zooarchaeology can reveal about the Conquest. The other subjects discussed are the battle of Alencon; the impact of rebellion on Little Domesday; Lawrence of Durham; Thomas Becket; Peter of Blois; Anglo-French peace conferences; episcopal elections and the loss of Normandy; Norman identity in southern Italian chronicles; and the Normans on crusade. Contributors: RICHARD BARTON, NAOMI SYKES, LUCY MARTEN, MIA MUNSTER-SWENDSEN, JOHN D. COTTS,...

Gerald of Wales, the son of a Norman Baron and the grandson of a Welsh Princess, is one of the most gifted and entertaining of medieval writers. His autobiography, translated from the Latin, presents the story of an Archdeacon who, despite his passionate efforts, never became a Bishop; it is the self-revelation of a man as able and courageous as he was vain and eccentric, and as devout and serious as he was flamboyant and humorous, a vivid picture of twelfth-century kings and prelates, of politics and travel, full of strange adventures at home and abroad, told with frankness and power, and...