Ateneo - UPO

The course will consider the origin and the evolution of the idea of Europe and the idea of European unity in the ancient, modern and contemporary age. Then it will focus on the contributions by authors discussing these issue during the modern and contemporary epoch, even with reference to the process of European integration after the II World War.
In the final part, the course will examine the debate about the EU perspectives in the current historical period.

C. Malandrino, S. Quirico, L'idea di Europa. Storie e prospettive, Roma, Carocci, 2020.

Moreover, the students will have to choose one of the following books:
1) Guido Crainz, Ombre d'Europa. Nazionalismi, memorie, usi politici della storia, Roma, Donzelli, 2022
2) Lucio Caracciolo, La pace è finita. Così ricomincia la storia in Europa, Milano, Feltrinelli, 2022
3) Vittorio Emanuele Parsi, Il posto della guerra. E il costo della libertà, Milano, Bompiani, 2022

The students will learn the main ideas and theories concerning the European identity and the idea of Europe and of the process of its unification from the ancient to the modern and contemporary age.
Introduction to the political debate about Europe in the global age.

General knowledge of the history of modern and contemporary political thought

The course will be mainly organized on the basis of traditional lessons by the teacher, but it will also offer exercises and seminars. Attendance is suggested

The teacher will discuss with the students the opportunity of programming an intermediate written test.

The final exam will be oral.

After an overview on the development of the idea of Europe in the ancient and modern age, the course will focus on modern author as Machiavelli, Montesquieu and Voltaire, and on the peace issue theorized by Saint-Pierre and Kant. The ideal and institutional consequences of the XVIII-century American and French Revolution on the idea of European unity will be deeply examined. Particular attention will be even paid on the preparatory debate about the European unification and the related federal and confederal models from the XIX century to the first half of XX century, i.e. the political thought of the Italian Risorgimento (Cattaneo, Mazzini, Garibaldi), the Marxist stream (Bauer, Renner, Kautsky, Trockij, the Italian authors of the “Critica sociale”), the debate in the period between the I and the II World War (Einaudi, Agnelli, Cabiati, Coudenhove-Kalergi, Benda, Ortega y Gasset, Lord Lothian, Robbins), the Italian antifascist movement (Rosselli, Trentin, Spinelli, Rossi), after the II World War ((Monnet, Schuman, De Gasperi, Aron, Hallstein, De Gaulle, Spinelli, Thatcher, Delors, Kohl, Mitterrand), until the debate between XX and XXI century.
The final part of the course will have a seminar nature and will discuss the issues of European identity, nationalism and war.

The learning of the main ideas and theories concerning the European identity and the idea of Europe