Imagining Europe

In Imagining Europe, Chiara Bottici and Benoît Challand explore the formation of modern European identity. Europe has not always been there, although we have been imagining it for quite some time. Even after the birth of a polity called the European Union, the meaning of Europe remained a very much contested topic. What is Europe? What are its boundaries? Is there a specific European identity or is the EU just the name for a group of institutions? This book answers these questions, showing that in Europe's formation, myth and memory, although distinct, are often merged in a common attempt to construct an identity for its present and its future. In a time when Europe is facing an existential crisis, when its meaning is being questioned, Imagining Europe explores a vital and often unacknowledged aspect of the European project.

• Uses a multidisciplinary method, combining political theory, philosophy and historical sociology
• Establishes a research agenda, while providing an exhaustive analysis of all European myths and memories
• Shows how the ways in which we imagine Europe have dramatically changed over time and place and discusses why and when historical narratives have turned into mythical ones