A millennium's worth of history in 247 pages, not counting the end notes. This is necessarily a truncated tale, alternately galloping and glib in parts. As Simms states in his introduction, economics and political thought are neglected; demographics and national culture ignored entirely. This isn't as big a problem as it sounds for the first half of the book, which concentrates on a dry geopolitics, arguing that Britain - and specifically England (England's Europe would have been a more honest title) - has always had a large stake in European politics as a matter of simple security. Calais was a defensive rampart rather than some projection or expansion, etc. The need for England to secure its borders from European intrigue caused the United Kingdom to be born. In this light it would be interesting to know more about how the diplomatic and military successes of Cromwell were reversed almost over night by Charles II, which this rather fast-paced text reduces to a single-sentence observation. But such abbreviations are to be expected in a work of this size.

The book's real problem is in its second half, which leaves dry geopolitics behind to becomes sentimental, subjective, and speculative. The trigger for this is Britain's refusal in 1889 of an alliance with Bismarck's newly unified Germany. This refusal broke with a long-standing British/English diplomatic tradition , which for centuries had tended to view Germany, or at least that geographic area, as a friend. Shortly before German unification, Palmerston supported this continuum: he wanted a strong Germany to deter Russia. Quite why this volte face occurred, or how it was justified, is not explained. This omission is curious, given that on a superficial analysis, the decision would lead to two supremely destructive World Wars and the ruin of Europe on the world stage. It is the period from the First World War to the present day which occupies the second half of the book, which is inferior in quality.

Simms' thesis is okay as far as it goes. Europe must be federalised on the American model for union to work. Such an occurrence is an event, not a process, as the Declaration of Independence reflects. There must be timing and drama and threat to make it work (or, perhaps, as Bismarck had it, blood and steel). The problem with the EU, Simms says, is that it is a process and not an event, and things such as counties/nation states/a federal Europe cannot be forged out of mere process. You need a defining event. If the Second World War couldn't do it, then what can?

Simms' believes that the constitutional model that Europe should adopt, when it finally gets around to federalisation, should adopt an Anglo-type consitution, and that Britain shouldn't be part of it. This is also okay, as far is it goes. The vital omission, implicit throughout the preceding pages, is that whenever a unifying European event has looked likely to occur, Britian has spent much men and material defeating it. There hasn't been a truly unifying European force that Britain hasn't sought to defeat, except (possibly) the Holy Roman Empire. It seems Simms' solution to this is for a federalising Europe to adopt a model that will be constitutionally likely to favour British interests. This might work, but it is politically unrealistic in the extreme. Unrealistic politics are par for the course with Simms, of course: he is the President of the Henry Jackson Society. As such it is difficult to know whether Simms is mad or bad. Probably both to some degree. His idea that Blair would have made a fantastic European president shows extreme cognitive dissonance over Iraq and the role of Anglo-US politics in European affairs. His belief that Europe should be headed by an American-style President, elected by popular vote, but without the safeguard of an electoral college, is particularly striking. Populism is how Atlanticist influence is expected to triumph over the European demos, presumably. ( )