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International Relationships

Richard Mayne, in The Community of Europe: Past, Present and Future, examines the state of the European Common Market Community as it existed in the early 1960s. Mayne is an insider in the matters he writes about, having been for six years---at the time of the book's publication---an official of the European Economic Community. Because of the changes which have taken place in the economic and political realms among the nations of Europe in the succeeding three decades, the book must be reviewed in the context of the time in which it was written. The problems inherent in international relationships in the early 1960s remain in place today, however, and the specific economic and political relationships among the nations of Europe are still being ironed out today much as they were three decades ago. In other words, the book has not lost its fundamental relevance from either an economic or an historical perspective.

Having said this, there are clearly important changes which have taken place in the three decades since Mayne's writing. Germany is no longer divided, and the author's comments relating to the Soviet Union and its satellites in Eastern Europe are obviously obsolete after the collapse of the Soviet Empire. The fears of the Soviet Union held by the nations, people and leaders of Western Europe are hardly as relevant as they once were, although the relationships between Europe and the new nations and republics fitfully emerging from the remains of the Soviet bloc are still far from being clarified.

The author's comments on the causes of the coming together of the nations of Western Europe remain accurate:

This process is partly a response to the technological changes that have reduced distances, made possible mass production, and enormously increased men's means of mutual annihilation. . . . It is in the countries of Western Europe hat have most deliberately sought to transcend national barriers (12).

It is true t...

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International Relationships. (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 07:53, March 29, 2024, from https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1702671.html