Umoja wa Ulaya
McAuley, James, "A More Perfect Union?" (review of Luuk van Middelaar, Alarums and Excursions:  Improving Politics on the European Stage, translated from the Dutch by Liz Waters, Agenda, 2019, 301 pp.; and Stéphanie Hennette, Thomas Piketty, Guillaume Sacriste, and Antoine Vauchez, How to Democratize Europe, translated from the French by Paul Dermine, Marc LePain, and Patrick Camiller, Harvard University Press, 2019, 209 pp.), The New York Review of Books, vol. LXVI, no. 13 (15 August 2019), pp. 46–48.  James McAuley writes:  "There was never a single moment that marked the definitive establishment of the European Union, which... has continued to define itself since World War II.  [T]he major turning points have all been quiet steps on the way to further economic integration while preserving national sovereignty.  Today there is only an incomplete monetary union without a real political contract to manage it...  [Nevertheless, the Union's] various peoples have grown remarkably closer...  The European Union now has open borders, a single market from Portugal to the Baltics, and more or less monthly meetings of member state leaders [the European Council].  What's more, those member states are now closer to each other than they are to the United States...  [T]his transformation has occurred informally and organically...  [R]obust supranational politics are taking root in Europe... Luuk van Middelaar writes:  '[W]hat unites us as Europeans on this continent is bigger and stronger than anything that divides us.'"  (pp. 47–48.)