1 00:00:00,480 --> 00:00:09,690 Well, I come to the history of Europe as an outsider, which I sometimes think is a bad thing to be because I don't have any axes to grind. 2 00:00:09,690 --> 00:00:14,940 I don't have to defend my country and my people. I don't have to attack my country and my people. 3 00:00:14,940 --> 00:00:17,940 I see Europe from across the Atlantic Ocean. 4 00:00:17,940 --> 00:00:24,030 And when you see it from further away, I think you're more aware of the commonalities and the differences. 5 00:00:24,030 --> 00:00:28,950 If you ask Canadians, and this has been true for long, as I can remember, if you ask Canadians, 6 00:00:28,950 --> 00:00:31,830 what are the some of the plans and they sometimes is now going to Europe? 7 00:00:31,830 --> 00:00:37,560 I'll start in Dublin, then I'll go to London, but I might stop in Paris and I'm hoping to get as Far East as possible. 8 00:00:37,560 --> 00:00:41,580 But it has sometimes more ambitious than it might go to St. Petersburg. 9 00:00:41,580 --> 00:00:49,440 But for people, so the way you are, I think the more you tend to see Europe as something that has a sort of cohesion. 10 00:00:49,440 --> 00:00:54,600 The problems, of course, start when you try to rewrite its history. And one of the great problems, 11 00:00:54,600 --> 00:01:00,900 which is I don't want to raise some of these problems and suggest areas where we may want to continue to explore Europe's history. 12 00:01:00,900 --> 00:01:05,130 One of the problems, of course, is just simple geography. Where does Europe southern end? 13 00:01:05,130 --> 00:01:09,240 It is not a continent. It is part of the great Eurasian landmass. 14 00:01:09,240 --> 00:01:15,990 And it, of course, is bounded by seas on three sides. But where does your stop in the East? 15 00:01:15,990 --> 00:01:21,180 And this has always been a difficult question, I think remains a very difficult question. 16 00:01:21,180 --> 00:01:26,970 I was in Tallinn a few years ago doing something for the BBC, which was exploring some of these questions, 17 00:01:26,970 --> 00:01:33,000 and we asked a local historian whether as Europe and he said, at the Russian border. 18 00:01:33,000 --> 00:01:38,370 And he was very clear that not nothing on the other side of the Russian border currently, in his view, is Europe. 19 00:01:38,370 --> 00:01:42,540 But others would say the events of the Urals, or maybe Europe doesn't end anywhere in the east, 20 00:01:42,540 --> 00:01:46,280 it just simply attenuates and other countries begin to come in. 21 00:01:46,280 --> 00:01:49,260 It is, I think, a very important question. 22 00:01:49,260 --> 00:01:56,340 And when you're looking at geography, I think we also have to remember that over time, our views of what Europeans have shifted. 23 00:01:56,340 --> 00:02:00,330 I mean, for the Greeks and the Romans, Europe was very much of the eastern part of the Mediterranean. 24 00:02:00,330 --> 00:02:07,620 And the term was used to distinguish what they saw as Europe, which is actually a very small part of what Europe is today from Asia and from Africa, 25 00:02:07,620 --> 00:02:14,820 which they saw as being somewhat different and inhabited by different sorts of people. And over time, of course, the Centre of Europe has has moved. 26 00:02:14,820 --> 00:02:19,800 It's shifted westwards and northwards. But again, these are questions where where does your start? 27 00:02:19,800 --> 00:02:23,250 When does the idea of Europe start and what does it encompass? 28 00:02:23,250 --> 00:02:29,220 And I think tied to that again, that the question of geography is, is water a barrier or a highway? 29 00:02:29,220 --> 00:02:36,780 We tend to see natural features like great rivers and of course, the English Channel as being things that divide Europe up. 30 00:02:36,780 --> 00:02:43,020 But of course, with so much of history waterways, we're much safer, much more convenient, much more economical as a travelling. 31 00:02:43,020 --> 00:02:47,640 And so although people who have advocated leave have tended to see the channel as something 32 00:02:47,640 --> 00:02:52,500 that marks out the distinctiveness of the British Isles from the continent of Europe. 33 00:02:52,500 --> 00:02:56,130 I would argue that for much of Europe's history in the history of the British Isles, 34 00:02:56,130 --> 00:03:00,180 the English Channel has been a highway which has been easily pronounced transverse 35 00:03:00,180 --> 00:03:05,070 and has carried ideas as carry goods and has carried peoples back and forth. 36 00:03:05,070 --> 00:03:10,350 If it's not geography and geography, I think is problematic, then is it in some sense, 37 00:03:10,350 --> 00:03:15,460 cultural is what we think of Europe today in some way and heritage in the classical world. 38 00:03:15,460 --> 00:03:18,510 Inheritors of the Greek civilisation. 39 00:03:18,510 --> 00:03:26,250 And then the Roman civilisation which succeeded it and against the thought, because I suppose I said that was very much a Mediterranean visualisation, 40 00:03:26,250 --> 00:03:34,770 very much at the eastern end or southern and northern side of the Mediterranean is Europe civilizational idea. 41 00:03:34,770 --> 00:03:39,900 And if so, which civilisation? There are those who will say that Europe is a Christian civilisation, 42 00:03:39,900 --> 00:03:44,850 and today these terms are very problematic because usually they mean something very specific by it. 43 00:03:44,850 --> 00:03:49,530 But I think it's probably fair to say that you can see the enormous cultural influence, 44 00:03:49,530 --> 00:03:53,310 if not the religious influence of Christianity in Europe, which affected culture. 45 00:03:53,310 --> 00:03:57,780 It's affected architecture. It's effective ways in which we think. But it is also, of course, 46 00:03:57,780 --> 00:04:03,030 divided into a dividing line right down to Europe between Catholicism and 47 00:04:03,030 --> 00:04:08,340 Orthodoxy and then later on between varieties of Protestantism and Catholicism. 48 00:04:08,340 --> 00:04:12,780 And we cannot look just at the Christian heritage of Europe. How do we define it? 49 00:04:12,780 --> 00:04:21,360 And we see it because we also have to take into account the enormous contributions made by pagans, financiers and by Jews over many centuries. 50 00:04:21,360 --> 00:04:26,970 So it's not a civilizational thing, is it? Is it a set of shared values? And then of course, we get into question which share values? 51 00:04:26,970 --> 00:04:30,540 And if you look through European history, you can find any values in many different sorts. 52 00:04:30,540 --> 00:04:35,940 Some of them we might have are some of them we would certainly deplore. Is it an economic entity? 53 00:04:35,940 --> 00:04:41,490 And I think certainly the economic ties have been there for a very long time, and we can always, I think, 54 00:04:41,490 --> 00:04:46,920 to assume that what we're doing, the present is more efficient and more far reaching and more effective than anyone in the past. 55 00:04:46,920 --> 00:04:55,020 If you look at the links of trade and the movement of goods that, for example, founded or brought together Europe in the Roman Empire, 56 00:04:55,020 --> 00:05:00,310 if you look in the Middle Ages, which can, I think, too often think of as the Dark Ages and still an enormous amount. 57 00:05:00,310 --> 00:05:06,460 Trade going on, and there were also ideas being moved around, ideas being moved around, 58 00:05:06,460 --> 00:05:11,290 even for a time when we think they should have easily moved around. 59 00:05:11,290 --> 00:05:19,000 If you go as I went fairly recent Instagram on the Danube in the just in the north of Hungary, it's the most extraordinary place there. 60 00:05:19,000 --> 00:05:22,900 You can see Romanesque buildings, restaurants, buildings, baroque buildings. 61 00:05:22,900 --> 00:05:29,350 Mean these were styles and ideas that moved across Europe, often through very, very great distance. 62 00:05:29,350 --> 00:05:35,980 I think finally, as we consider one of Europe, I think it's an interesting question and I'd like to go around and that's about it is 63 00:05:35,980 --> 00:05:39,910 why have the periods of unity in Europe and so much less in the periods in China? 64 00:05:39,910 --> 00:05:41,350 And I think it is something we think about. 65 00:05:41,350 --> 00:05:48,040 So what our challenges are to try to find consistent threads through this complicated story without being ahistorical, 66 00:05:48,040 --> 00:05:51,800 without reading the president back into the past, as has happened, has happened, is happening. 67 00:05:51,800 --> 00:05:56,040 It happened very much in the 19th century. We have to look at what Europe will want to think about. 68 00:05:56,040 --> 00:06:00,430 Do we look at Europe with our continental Europe, which is in some ways being a model for the world? 69 00:06:00,430 --> 00:06:05,950 How do we deal with the difference between nationalism, regionalism, localism and pan-European ism? 70 00:06:05,950 --> 00:06:11,440 And as Andy Haralson, I think rightly these are not mutually exclusive. 71 00:06:11,440 --> 00:06:15,610 So it seems to me another question we might want to consider is how much do we look 72 00:06:15,610 --> 00:06:19,090 at Europe and how much do we go down into society and consider those stories? 73 00:06:19,090 --> 00:06:24,160 And how do we consider how they interact? The same is true of history, and I'm just throwing these out. 74 00:06:24,160 --> 00:06:29,230 I have my heard areas where the meaning of Europe and its history can be explored. 75 00:06:29,230 --> 00:06:32,890 One is in the growth of the centralised state and interstate relations, 76 00:06:32,890 --> 00:06:40,690 and this is something that Europe has contributed a lot to and the growth in international law and international norms, practises and expectations. 77 00:06:40,690 --> 00:06:45,760 A second thing that very closely allied to the growth of the powerful, centralised state is war. 78 00:06:45,760 --> 00:06:50,140 How much of a role will play in European history? This is something I think we need to consider. 79 00:06:50,140 --> 00:06:56,980 I don't agree with that to a Hanson says. As a western way of war, I think this is I find his arguments unconvincing, but war has. 80 00:06:56,980 --> 00:07:04,270 I think that played an enormous part in the development of Europe in its adaptation of better technologies and its organisational structure, 81 00:07:04,270 --> 00:07:07,840 which leads me to the third point I think we should look at. And that is Europe in the world. 82 00:07:07,840 --> 00:07:11,300 I think consider Europe without looking at the ways in which Europe has gone up to the world. 83 00:07:11,300 --> 00:07:16,060 The place in which the world has come in to Europe, I think, is to miss a very important part. 84 00:07:16,060 --> 00:07:20,560 And this again goes back acrimony because back into the invasions of the peoples coming from 85 00:07:20,560 --> 00:07:25,600 the east and the outer edges and the peoples coming from the Middle East and North Africa. 86 00:07:25,600 --> 00:07:28,750 And so I think that relationship between Europe and the rest of the world, 87 00:07:28,750 --> 00:07:34,090 it has always been there perhaps became more important in the early modern period. 88 00:07:34,090 --> 00:07:39,100 And so I think what we need to do is we look at the history of Europe is not trying to create narratives. 89 00:07:39,100 --> 00:07:43,270 I think we've seen what happens when historians create narratives. We do not have a glorious record in this. 90 00:07:43,270 --> 00:07:48,030 We created in the past some very dangerous narratives which tell of victimisation or triumph. 91 00:07:48,030 --> 00:07:54,970 I think we need to be aware of that. I think what our role should be is to see Europe as it always has to work in progress. 92 00:07:54,970 --> 00:07:59,110 That's something that's difficult to define and we should contribute to that discussion. 93 00:07:59,110 --> 00:08:02,350 We need to integrate the different sorts of histories that can be written about Europe. 94 00:08:02,350 --> 00:08:05,800 But I think what we need to do above all is keep open the idea that there are 95 00:08:05,800 --> 00:08:11,250 many different narratives in history and one does not supersede all of others. 96 00:08:11,250 --> 00:08:19,510 We can agree with the idea that historians do not necessarily create narratives. 97 00:08:19,510 --> 00:08:31,870 One of our main task, which is to construct existing narratives, which we which have been constructed by different intellectual communities. 98 00:08:31,870 --> 00:08:38,680 So what I would like to do is not to present a narrative of the to present three key elements, 99 00:08:38,680 --> 00:08:47,890 which seem to be very important when we discuss our subject Europe the of twenty first century. 100 00:08:47,890 --> 00:08:56,170 First of all, I'm going to speak on the problem of European nations turning to the question 101 00:08:56,170 --> 00:09:04,150 of a petrol coming from with all three of the theory of Perth dependency. 102 00:09:04,150 --> 00:09:12,550 First, there is no writing of any history of Europe, which connected with the nations of the nation states left out. 103 00:09:12,550 --> 00:09:17,260 To some degree, the nation is always the elephant in the room. 104 00:09:17,260 --> 00:09:23,140 If we talk about Europe and on the other hand, 105 00:09:23,140 --> 00:09:34,060 I would very strongly endorse the thesis that historically the nation state and European integration are not opposites. 106 00:09:34,060 --> 00:09:40,870 The development of the European community and the European Union does not imply the abolition of the nation state. 107 00:09:40,870 --> 00:09:49,090 On the contrary, European integration is a manifestation of the self-assertion and regeneration of the nation state. 108 00:09:49,090 --> 00:09:55,270 Even the so-called quantum leap of the left, though, it's not resolvable. 109 00:09:55,270 --> 00:09:59,860 It isn't, nor from identical nationally. 110 00:09:59,860 --> 00:10:10,540 Interests there, she went on, was far more the result of American pressure and complimentary or German or Western interests. 111 00:10:10,540 --> 00:10:19,350 So if we have a look at the early history of European integration, we could absolutely endorse a new was well known for Europe, right? 112 00:10:19,350 --> 00:10:22,960 The European rescue of the nation state. 113 00:10:22,960 --> 00:10:34,870 In other words, whenever European states and nations felt that their very own interests were best served by the mood of European cooperation, 114 00:10:34,870 --> 00:10:43,150 there was sufficient progress in European integration. This wasn't the case in the 1950s when you see what's at stake. 115 00:10:43,150 --> 00:10:49,210 And in the late 1980s, when the single market and the single currency were under discussion. 116 00:10:49,210 --> 00:11:00,820 But this was also the case. After 2000, the new enlargement of 2004 and 2007 created a new common political and communicative space. 117 00:11:00,820 --> 00:11:07,990 It helped to ease national and international tensions in the post-Cold War. 118 00:11:07,990 --> 00:11:12,100 Having said this, we must consider, of course, the other side of the coin, 119 00:11:12,100 --> 00:11:18,460 but broadening the perspective for the know writing of any history of Europe that does not 120 00:11:18,460 --> 00:11:26,590 take into account the European forces of self-destruction that shaped the 20th century. 121 00:11:26,590 --> 00:11:34,480 And this brings me to a second key element, which is the question of the Petro coming from without. 122 00:11:34,480 --> 00:11:35,110 Historically, 123 00:11:35,110 --> 00:11:45,430 we can ask whether Europeans did not need from the beginning of the 20th century with power from outside that was politically and materially superior. 124 00:11:45,430 --> 00:11:57,010 But opponents of petrol, so to speak, would have kept in check the European petty and contradictory national interests already after 1989. 125 00:11:57,010 --> 00:12:02,230 It was only the Americans who what role could have played such a role. 126 00:12:02,230 --> 00:12:10,930 But the US refused this role, even though it actually fitted strongly in its position as the main victim of World War One. 127 00:12:10,930 --> 00:12:17,860 Washington did not ratify the Paris treaties that proved that politically over the Atlantic, 128 00:12:17,860 --> 00:12:28,270 plus the European victorious powers Great Britain and France were left alone with the acuta task to pacify the continent. 129 00:12:28,270 --> 00:12:33,520 But London and Paris pursued very different interests than peace conceptions that 130 00:12:33,520 --> 00:12:39,730 finally turned out to be incompatible with the untold cold years that had won. 131 00:12:39,730 --> 00:12:46,570 The war was replaced by a result of the cold air that lost the peace. 132 00:12:46,570 --> 00:12:47,800 And though these conditions, 133 00:12:47,800 --> 00:12:57,430 European Democrats were not able to establish a strong unity of action against Mussolini or Franco, let alone against Israel. 134 00:12:57,430 --> 00:13:06,310 And even after 1945, the Franco-British antagonism continued under different circumstances after the Second World War. 135 00:13:06,310 --> 00:13:13,660 Peace in Europe was only to be heard under the conditions of the Cold War and with superpowers in Eastern Europe that, 136 00:13:13,660 --> 00:13:21,670 of course, the Soviet Union that dictated the development if necessary, with tanks Western Europe on the other side, 137 00:13:21,670 --> 00:13:28,150 that sort of level prerogative or even the informal Germany of the United States, 138 00:13:28,150 --> 00:13:34,880 with the US pointing the way to Western European countries could recover from from the devastation of war, 139 00:13:34,880 --> 00:13:39,520 the pool stable, fairly stable democracy is established. 140 00:13:39,520 --> 00:13:47,590 Political freedom, economic growth and the welfare state became intertwined in an unprecedented way. 141 00:13:47,590 --> 00:13:52,120 So the Cold War corroborates the experience of the 20th century, 142 00:13:52,120 --> 00:14:01,850 namely that modern Europe needs a sort of superior part of the continent from its own self destructive forces. 143 00:14:01,850 --> 00:14:09,460 The crucial the crucial question, therefore, is what about Europe's peace and security after the end of the Cold War? 144 00:14:09,460 --> 00:14:16,270 Other Europeans today capable to get along with themselves without perpetual? 145 00:14:16,270 --> 00:14:21,160 Are they capable of controlling the tendencies of self-destruction destruction? 146 00:14:21,160 --> 00:14:28,730 Today's Europe convinced to resemble a Europe of 1914 in the possibly fatal way? 147 00:14:28,730 --> 00:14:35,050 That brings me to our last key element that is the theory of path dependency. 148 00:14:35,050 --> 00:14:43,600 After 1945, Western Europeans choose a path to protect them from, so to speak, the ghosts of the past. 149 00:14:43,600 --> 00:14:48,100 And I will recall that this was a Western tradition. 150 00:14:48,100 --> 00:14:56,530 I mean, the whole history of European integration was the best western project championed and popularised by the United States at the beginning, 151 00:14:56,530 --> 00:15:02,030 at least. And when? Divides Ukraine. 152 00:15:02,030 --> 00:15:10,430 The road to us first was already paved and tricky of US political science and came into being in 1980 in 1993, 153 00:15:10,430 --> 00:15:15,330 exactly when this old Western narrative was obsolete. 154 00:15:15,330 --> 00:15:21,890 And that is one of the great ironies of European history that in exactly that moment when the European Union, 155 00:15:21,890 --> 00:15:31,400 the European Union, was came into being because to some extent, at least so obsolete. 156 00:15:31,400 --> 00:15:35,780 So nevertheless, after the 18th 1989, 157 00:15:35,780 --> 00:15:45,350 the community that was formed made it possible to give the new post-communist Europe a structure that went beyond national equal terms. 158 00:15:45,350 --> 00:15:49,460 So we have to ask, has the European Union itself? 159 00:15:49,460 --> 00:15:56,870 And what role is indeed into the role of the petrol the Europeans left before 1914 and 160 00:15:56,870 --> 00:16:04,820 after the 1980s has this something the crucial transformation of the Europeans to impose 161 00:16:04,820 --> 00:16:11,960 or in the transition to a sort of collective self control in the most successful attempt 162 00:16:11,960 --> 00:16:18,480 of the Europeans to impose a binding set of rules which protects against themselves. 163 00:16:18,480 --> 00:16:27,290 And this should not be underestimated. The EU, with its strict principles of democracy, human rights and protection of minorities, 164 00:16:27,290 --> 00:16:33,320 has achieved strong integrity of the supply of peacekeeping results. 165 00:16:33,320 --> 00:16:34,940 So for a quarter century, 166 00:16:34,940 --> 00:16:44,540 who in his attitude towards traditional powers were not capable of that is to overcome the security forces and to pacify every continent. 167 00:16:44,540 --> 00:16:54,950 The present, of course, and that was something we were talking about yesterday and today the situation is much more complicated and ambivalent, 168 00:16:54,950 --> 00:16:59,810 and we have a clear trend towards the rationalisation of politics. 169 00:16:59,810 --> 00:17:07,110 But on the other hand, there is a mechanism in place which I would like to call the path dependency of European integration. 170 00:17:07,110 --> 00:17:14,540 Of course, the General Council must be very brief on this narrative. 171 00:17:14,540 --> 00:17:24,080 If you like this element of path dependency contains a decisive element, which is the European states and peoples no well recognised. 172 00:17:24,080 --> 00:17:33,530 Time and again, that it would be much more expensive and costly to leave the path that would move on it, albeit laboriously. 173 00:17:33,530 --> 00:17:37,220 And in this respect, to some degree, 174 00:17:37,220 --> 00:17:45,560 this continuous muddling through that by no means corresponds to the great goals of the European citizens that is involved in some of these pictures, 175 00:17:45,560 --> 00:17:54,770 of course, and there is indeed a narrative of trade offs and the reverse is welcome this morning. 176 00:17:54,770 --> 00:17:59,480 So the question now is we are facing crucial choices. 177 00:17:59,480 --> 00:18:07,260 Europe's crisis is undeniable, but it could prove that at the end of the day, the Europe European path, 178 00:18:07,260 --> 00:18:15,910 as laborious as it is, is the least costly for European states and people of the world. 179 00:18:15,910 --> 00:18:27,590 That's OK. But I mean, even in Britain, it cannot be ruled out that the new Democratic majority will come to the conclusion in the months to come. 180 00:18:27,590 --> 00:18:28,640 And in my opinion, 181 00:18:28,640 --> 00:18:43,130 this is really a historic test on the question of how strong this path dependency has been established in Europe in the case of Britain since 1973. 182 00:18:43,130 --> 00:18:51,230 So Britain might discover that it is much less burdensome to accept membership in 183 00:18:51,230 --> 00:19:02,390 the EU as laboriously as it is than to escape to the open seat since there are much. 184 00:19:02,390 --> 00:19:06,740 I run into big focus on Europe in the 20th century. 185 00:19:06,740 --> 00:19:20,540 The first one to tell about going from 1914 to 2049 to the second long, cold rollercoaster from 1952, when I finished this at the end of 2017, 186 00:19:20,540 --> 00:19:28,250 when I was in Germany recently, someone asked me why I'd undertaken this laborious task of writing these two big volumes. 187 00:19:28,250 --> 00:19:36,410 And I think the expectation was that, I guess the philosophical reason for doing this thing or €10, 188 00:19:36,410 --> 00:19:40,220 it would be a personal narrative for why I've chosen to write these books. 189 00:19:40,220 --> 00:19:44,220 So I think it was, and despite what I just said, I wrote them because the publisher ask me to. 190 00:19:44,220 --> 00:19:48,740 Yeah, I've done what was meant to be one volume that turned into two. 191 00:19:48,740 --> 00:20:05,390 So it was indeed a long process of trying to explain the history of Europe in the 20th century in the first instance to myself. 192 00:20:05,390 --> 00:20:13,710 The title of the second volume is interesting because with the so rollercoaster, with the metaphor, a roller coaster, 193 00:20:13,710 --> 00:20:26,540 what I wanted to do was to turn away from the West European perspective, which is effectively of post-war European history as a success story. 194 00:20:26,540 --> 00:20:34,670 And by looking intensively and intensively at Eastern Europe, Southeastern Europe, 195 00:20:34,670 --> 00:20:41,450 Balkans and so many Europe Mediterranean area, and not just to the EU, 196 00:20:41,450 --> 00:20:53,450 I wanted to show that Europe was in fact a Europe with a lot of movements and some crises of ups and downs of here and there some movement of a whole. 197 00:20:53,450 --> 00:21:01,640 So that was the way I decided to use this as imperfect metaphor, a rollercoaster. 198 00:21:01,640 --> 00:21:08,300 Incidentally, the suggestion came from a German friend of mine who were talking about possible titles for this second, 199 00:21:08,300 --> 00:21:12,290 Williams said, What sort of possible? What's that in English? 200 00:21:12,290 --> 00:21:19,940 I said Rollercoaster, and she said, Well, but it is what it was like after 1950 and not a straight line, as I think. 201 00:21:19,940 --> 00:21:30,890 So sometimes I see no reason for a last decade to be the case in West Germany, but rather the ups and downs and loss of movement of the Americas, 202 00:21:30,890 --> 00:21:35,930 however, of what are the different types of they've called it the global age. 203 00:21:35,930 --> 00:21:44,000 It's a weak society in many ways, but it also encapsulates nonetheless one of the main themes of this century. 204 00:21:44,000 --> 00:21:47,480 Because whereas the first one was about war, so Panopto, 205 00:21:47,480 --> 00:21:53,960 the second volume in Europe in the seven decades since 1950 has a lot of things right through it. 206 00:21:53,960 --> 00:22:04,460 And it's quite one of the difficulties of coming to a Typekit is actually the fact that it is so different in its development of the global age, 207 00:22:04,460 --> 00:22:15,470 at least suggests that in this period, globalisation was a significant factor, which in fact does run through the book Increasing Globalisation. 208 00:22:15,470 --> 00:22:23,000 But secondly about Europe in this period, it comes dependence upon liberal forces in a way that they haven't been before. 209 00:22:23,000 --> 00:22:35,780 So in this way, older or less trendy in the global age also is quite a valuable thing to write in the history of my own era. 210 00:22:35,780 --> 00:22:47,180 In the same lawyer, I was born in 1943, so by writing most of my own lifetime, as I say, poses its own novelties and its own challenges. 211 00:22:47,180 --> 00:22:53,540 And so we try to make the history of the EEC EU interests. 212 00:22:53,540 --> 00:23:01,010 One of the greatest challenges that I wasn't sure, but in watching this and writing the book of this sort, 213 00:23:01,010 --> 00:23:05,540 the historian has to impose structures on the book on. 214 00:23:05,540 --> 00:23:10,160 These structures are largely not shaped shaped by narratives, 215 00:23:10,160 --> 00:23:15,890 but shaped by developments which are often in personal development, such as economic development, 216 00:23:15,890 --> 00:23:25,830 social changes, demographic changes and also for political and cultural changes in which narrative obviously does play a role and personality. 217 00:23:25,830 --> 00:23:30,080 When you think of the role played by this country, by Margaret Thatcher, for instance, 218 00:23:30,080 --> 00:23:37,920 but much more importance for warm personalities strikes structured as more severe than any other single individual that has got shot. 219 00:23:37,920 --> 00:23:47,030 And here you have with the the difficulties, the first ones are fitting in the role of personality into all sorts of structural, 220 00:23:47,030 --> 00:23:52,550 indeterminate structural determinants which actually shape the history of Europe. 221 00:23:52,550 --> 00:24:00,690 When we come to the question of narrative it poses, the question to me is whether a narrative is is causal or whether it's his a. 222 00:24:00,690 --> 00:24:08,610 Reaction to developments, so many of these changes, of course, in my view and notice that caused by things, Bill Norris says. 223 00:24:08,610 --> 00:24:13,980 But then narratives reshape themselves to accord with the changes that are taking place. 224 00:24:13,980 --> 00:24:18,960 One example the obviously the Brexit narrative here take back control. 225 00:24:18,960 --> 00:24:28,260 Brexit of the take back control fits into all sorts of narratives of British or actually English exceptionalism, 226 00:24:28,260 --> 00:24:38,610 which have a lengthy history but didn't play any significant role until the crisis decade of 2008 to thousand 18. 227 00:24:38,610 --> 00:24:46,320 So some time where you have led the double crisis of the Africa finance and Economics Typekit polarised stance of politics. 228 00:24:46,320 --> 00:24:52,140 And then on top of that, you have the migration crisis, which I don't remember hearing mentioned so far, 229 00:24:52,140 --> 00:24:57,180 but it's such a fundamental significance for present European narratives. 230 00:24:57,180 --> 00:25:05,430 The migration crisis top of the US, which then shaped the way in which the Brexit debate could follow in this country 231 00:25:05,430 --> 00:25:10,110 to take back control of what's harking back to notions of British exceptionalism, 232 00:25:10,110 --> 00:25:16,220 including the role of the Second World War on the British view about the Civil War so different from us, 233 00:25:16,220 --> 00:25:21,470 the joke of self-evident but also practically every other continental European country. 234 00:25:21,470 --> 00:25:27,910 So to this extent, the the narrative was able to slot into things which themselves haven't been determined by narrative, 235 00:25:27,910 --> 00:25:34,080 but by things external to narrative and. 236 00:25:34,080 --> 00:25:46,130 So in the book, What I deal with as really come to the I also deal with my time to transition from to between two periods of insecurity, 237 00:25:46,130 --> 00:25:53,430 say I start with it along with the existential insecurity of the Cold War, the early Cold War period. 238 00:25:53,430 --> 00:25:58,590 I'm old enough to remember that insecure until the 1950s and early 60s when we did 239 00:25:58,590 --> 00:26:03,270 think that the nuclear war breakouts anymore us particularly the Cuba crisis, 240 00:26:03,270 --> 00:26:07,770 but then moved to a new era of insecurity, which we're going through now. 241 00:26:07,770 --> 00:26:18,840 I think this this is a new insecurity composed of economic deregulation, globalisation with all its pluses and minuses, 242 00:26:18,840 --> 00:26:24,750 communications revolution, which is obviously a vital part of this new form of insecurity. 243 00:26:24,750 --> 00:26:28,650 And instead of unipolar international relations, 244 00:26:28,650 --> 00:26:33,570 which you thought would take place up to 1990 if we had multipolar international 245 00:26:33,570 --> 00:26:38,970 relations with all the great complexities under increased dangers from, 246 00:26:38,970 --> 00:26:42,570 I see this as the the results of a three four process. 247 00:26:42,570 --> 00:26:54,090 Just to mention, this is an economic major economic transformation in the period between the 1970s and early 1980s. 248 00:26:54,090 --> 00:27:03,690 Political transformation at the upon the events of 1989, two months ago and then the communications revolution of the 1990s and 2000s. 249 00:27:03,690 --> 00:27:12,660 Of these three transitions, I think it brought about the levels of insecurity that we see in so many walks of life today on the pivotal position. 250 00:27:12,660 --> 00:27:16,050 This, I think, is of the 1970s and early 1980s. 251 00:27:16,050 --> 00:27:23,490 We're now first, of course, with where this crisis leads us in the crisis that we've been facing in Europe since 2008, 252 00:27:23,490 --> 00:27:31,530 since the beginning of the financial crisis. And this poses the major issues, of course, as we all know for the future of the EU. 253 00:27:31,530 --> 00:27:35,680 My own what is a very committed pro-European? 254 00:27:35,680 --> 00:27:43,920 This is that I think the EU needs significant change to continue in the long term. 255 00:27:43,920 --> 00:27:50,090 But I can't see how well significant change from the original. That's the question of the future. 256 00:27:50,090 --> 00:27:55,494 I got.