Time and again major events have forced Europe to find a role for itself on the world stage: the Suez Crisis, the Fall of the Berlin Wall, the attacks of 11 September. Amid the tumult of current affairs, politicians have succeeded in linking past and future, creating a passage to Europe out of the events of the moment. This is the essence of politics, splendidly illustrated by the unfinished story of Europe.

In the Dutch tradition of Johan Huizinga, Van Middelaar combines testimony, stories and contrasting interpretations from different European countries into a single history of Europe. Using plain language he shakes off the platitudes and clichés of existing literature about the EU. He disentangles the complex origins of Europe by focusing on unique events and pregnant details: an empty chair; a single word in a treaty. Van Middelaar does for Europe what the brilliant American historian Joseph Ellis did for the American Republic in Founding Brothers.

With a keen sense of irony the author describes how European politicians are constantly searching for a European audience that will applaud their decisions. They have tried subsidies, rights, a parliament, a flag and lessons about our shared history. To little effect. ‘Should the citizens of the old continent, almost all of whom are now members of the Union, ever start to feel they are Europeans, it will be not least because world history has driven them into each other’s arms.’ Van Middelaar spent five years working behind the scenes in European and national politics. In Brussels he witnessed the negotiations over a European constitution and in The Hague the Dutch ‘No’ campaign against it. He binds together these personal experiences with the erudition of a historian, the intellect of a political philosopher and the narrative instincts of a novelist, creating a unique account of the birth of Europe.

• Rare in combining the insights of a political philosopher with many years of personal experience of the political game in Brussels
• Looks at dynamic post-1989 Europe, the continent of a new generation
• A story written with gusto and an eye for piquant details, without EU jargon, mandarinisms or acronyms
• website book: passage-to-europe.eu