On the night of May 1st 1997 the Labour party - dubbed New Labour by Tony Blair - was swept to power, Paddy Ashdown's Liberal Democrats more than doubled their parliamentary representation and Sinn Fein elected two MPs in Northern Ireland constituencies. Above all, the Conservative Party, for more than a century one of the most powerful political forces in any democratic country, dramatically reduced their parliamentary representation and lost power after 18 continuous years in office.

In the latter part of the nineteenth century Walter Bagehot wrote a classic account of the British constitution as it had developed during Queen Victoria's reign. He argued that the late Victorian constitution was not at all what people thought it was. Anthony King argues that the same is true at the beginning of this century. Most people are aware that a series of major constitutional changes has taken place, but few recognize that their cumulative effect has been to change entirely the nature of Britain's constitutional structure. The old constitution has gone. The author insists that the...

As a result of new strategic threats, Europe's land forces are currently undergoing a historic transformation which may reflect wider processes of European integration. Europe's mass, mainly conscript armies are being replaced by smaller, more capable, professionalised militaries concentrated into new operational headquarters and rapid reaction brigades, able to plan, command and execute global military interventions. At the same time, these headquarters and brigades are co-operating with each other across national borders at a level which would have been inconceivable in the twentieth...

Football constitutes a vivid public ritual in contemporary European culture through which emergent social solidarities and new economic networks have come into being. This fascinating and unique volume traces the transformation of European football from the 1950s to the present, focusing in particular on the dramatic changes that have occurred in the last decade and linking them to the wider process of European integration. The examination of football illuminates how the growing dominance of the free market has changed European society from an international order in which the nation-state...