The writers’ Europe: an imagined community
The writers’ Europe: an imagined community

Author(s): Paul Michael Lützeler
Subject(s): Politics / Political Sciences, Philosophy, Social Sciences
Published by: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Łódzkiego
Keywords: writers’ Europe;imagined community
Summary/Abstract: What seems clear is that, in these writings of novelists and thinkers, fundamental ideas about, and designs for, the institutions of a unified Europe were developed. Many of these writers were exiled authors, and their international or transatlantic experiences protected them against provincialism and nationalism. Only in the wake of the catastrophe of the Second World War, after Europe had lost her independence, did the time appear to be ripe for building a new continental association (at the time a Western European community) that would have unity, economic cooperation and peace as its goal. And at that very moment in history, the vocabulary and grammar for a new political language, for a new common discourse on European unity, economic integration and peace were available, thanks to the continued centuries-old efforts of European writers and intellectuals.

• Details
• Contents