Taking the comparison of agricultural and transport policies as an example, this article argues for a new way of writing European integration history. It goes beyond the state-centric confines of the diplomatic history which has dominated the field so far and challenges the teleologies in most accounts. Instead, it argues for the need to take into account long-term perspectives as well as the role of transnational actors with a more contingent narrative. Moreover, it demonstrates that the availability of alternative inter- and transnational regimes can be decisive for the trajectory of integration within EC/EU parameters.

António de Oliveira Salazar, dictatorial premier of Portugal from 1932 to 1968, like most conservatives of his generation, had opposed Portugal's intervention in the Great War. Once in power, and especially during his time as Minister of War (1936–44), Salazar attempted to wind down the commemoration ceremonies, which centred on 9 April. His failure to do so is very revealing of the difficult relationship between Salazar and the Portuguese army, which was the main beneficiary of these ceremonies, and which saw itself as having a privileged role within Salazar's New State.

The failure of the Free Trade Area (FTA), a British ‘Greater Europe’ free-market project, has often been contrasted with the European Economic Community (EEC)'s rapid success. However, this article claims that the EEC's success was neither logical nor automatic. The FTA project was not bound to failure, but could easily have become the principal institution for European co-operation. Moreover, the French leader, Charles de Gaulle, played such a prominent role in the EEC that he could be described as a new ‘Father of Europe’. Without the EEC, France would certainly have been forced to reach agreement on the FTA, but conversely, without de Gaulle, the EEC would probably have been diluted into a larger FTA.

This article examines inter-war east-central European cultural diplomacy as played out in one apparently remote locale: the Nationality Rooms of the Cathedral of Learning at the University of Pittsburgh. Here, a local project originally intended to pay homage to the various immigrants of the Steel City was transformed into a transatlantic project in which the Czechoslovak, Hungarian and Romanian governments (among others) each aimed to construct and propagate a national image abroad. A close looks at this particular ‘transnational construction site’ reveals a surprisingly complex entanglement of cultural production, the construction of national identities, and foreign policy. Battles over space and artistic content also lay bare the sense of competition, urgency and anxiety that, this article argues, characterised inter-war cultural diplomacy in east-central Europe.

This work links the western Allies’ policy of denazification in occupied Germany to efforts to repatriate German intelligence agents and Nazi Party officials – so-called ‘obnoxious’ Germans – from the neutral states of Europe after the Second World War. Once on German soil, these individuals would be subject to internment and investigation as outlined in occupation policy. Using the situation in Franco's Spain as a case study, the article argues that new ideas of neutrality following the war and a strong commitment to the concept of denazification led to the creation of the repatriation policy, especially within the United States. Repatriation was also a way to measure the extent to which Franco's Spain accepted the Allied victory and the defeat of Nazism and fascism. The US perception was that the continued presence of individual Nazis meant the continued influence of Nazism itself. Spain responded half-heartedly, at best. Despite the fact that in terms of numbers repatriated the policy was a failure, the Spanish example demonstrates that the attempted repatriation of ‘obnoxious’ Germans from neutral Europe, although overlooked, was significant not only as part of the immediate post-war settlement but also in its bearing on US ideas about Nazism, security and perceived collaboration of neutral states like Spain.