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The Rise and Fall of American Europe
At the dawn of the Cold War, the US administration pushed reluctant Europeans to create a federation of democratic states. In doing so, they gave birth to an American Europe – a new political order protected by the US military and buoyed by transatlantic trade.
Europe now faces a stark reality. The Trump Administration dislikes NATO, considers the EU's trade policies "worse than China['s]," and attacks the banning of nationalist parties. Many in the MAGA movement are similarly hostile to Europe, which they see as an overregulated museum, a US dependency, powerless on the world-stage.
This book explains why American Europe fell from favor. It weighs the prospects of alternative European political orders, including a National-Sovereigntist Europe, a Global Europe, and a European Europe. It argues that Europe needs to rethink its alliances, and Britain must decide where it belongs.
Europe now faces a stark reality. The Trump Administration dislikes NATO, considers the EU's trade policies "worse than China['s]," and attacks the banning of nationalist parties. Many in the MAGA movement are similarly hostile to Europe, which they see as an overregulated museum, a US dependency, powerless on the world-stage.
This book explains why American Europe fell from favor. It weighs the prospects of alternative European political orders, including a National-Sovereigntist Europe, a Global Europe, and a European Europe. It argues that Europe needs to rethink its alliances, and Britain must decide where it belongs.
- GenresHistory
160 pages, Hardcover
Published September 1, 2026
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September 1, 2026‘I am the boss!’ Donald Trump beamed as he waltzed into the 2026 G7 summit in France, eliciting nervous giggles from European leaders. It might not be advisable for them, in this desperate state, to read Glyn Morgan’s The Rise and Fall of American Europe, which portrays a powerless Europe with many hypothetical choices but no real options.
The definition of ‘American Europe’ is not entirely clear. After deciding what it wasn’t – neither a state, nor an empire, nor a vassal – Morgan comes up with the type of formula that only satisfies political scientists: a multilevel system that allocates government functions to four levels: national, European, Atlantic, and (confusingly) open-ended expansionism. Its history, though, is traced with expert knowledge.
Historians ascribe the US-built postwar order to Harry Truman. Morgan insists that Franklin D. Roosevelt was the original architect. By the time he met his Russian and British counterparts in Tehran in 1943, he had already decided to replace imperial Europe with an American-friendly version. Churchill could do little to save his ‘poor little English donkey’ from the schemes of the ‘American buffalo’. His attempts to find a respectable future under an independent European council or a union of the English-speaking peoples were rebuffed. What followed, from the Marshall Plan in 1948 to NATO the following year, consolidated America’s world hegemony.
Read the rest of the review at https://www.historytoday.com/archive/...
Hazem Kandil is Professor of Historical and Political Sociology at the University of Cambridge.
The definition of ‘American Europe’ is not entirely clear. After deciding what it wasn’t – neither a state, nor an empire, nor a vassal – Morgan comes up with the type of formula that only satisfies political scientists: a multilevel system that allocates government functions to four levels: national, European, Atlantic, and (confusingly) open-ended expansionism. Its history, though, is traced with expert knowledge.
Historians ascribe the US-built postwar order to Harry Truman. Morgan insists that Franklin D. Roosevelt was the original architect. By the time he met his Russian and British counterparts in Tehran in 1943, he had already decided to replace imperial Europe with an American-friendly version. Churchill could do little to save his ‘poor little English donkey’ from the schemes of the ‘American buffalo’. His attempts to find a respectable future under an independent European council or a union of the English-speaking peoples were rebuffed. What followed, from the Marshall Plan in 1948 to NATO the following year, consolidated America’s world hegemony.
Read the rest of the review at https://www.historytoday.com/archive/...
Hazem Kandil is Professor of Historical and Political Sociology at the University of Cambridge.
Displaying 1 - 1 of 1 review