A Certain Idea of Europe. By Craig Parsons. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2003. 256p. $39.95.

This book offers perhaps the most carefully researched analytical study to date of French policymaking in European integration covering most of the post–World War II period. It seeks to show how certain ideas about Europe have shaped the French pursuit of European institutions and, by extension, European outcomes themselves. Ideas, Craig Parsons argues, have provided a measurable “constant cause” fueling the process of European integration. This process, however, was far from linear, as competing ideas battled for dominance in policy discourse and action at all key junctures of integration.