From its inception the Editorial Board of Contemporary European History has met annually to discuss matters of journal business and policy. Members have travelled from the United States and Australia, as well as several European countries, to be present at these meetings and have never just made up a list of distinguished but inactive names. At the annual meeting of 1997 it was suggested that, for a change, we should use the opportunity of the 1999 meeting to allow board members to reflect on their own fields of historical research at the turn of the century. As a result the April 1999 board meeting, which took place in New York thanks to the good offices of the Remarque Institute of New York University and its Director, Professor Tony Judt, transformed itself into a small conference, ‘Reflections on the Twentieth Century’. It is some of the (revised) ‘think-pieces’ of that conference that form this issue of the journal. Not all papers given at the conference appear here. Those that do have been seen by external referees.

This paper considers why political leaders and central bankers continued to adhere to the gold standard as the Great Depression intensified. We do not focus on the effects of the gold standard on the Depression, which have been documented elsewhere, but on the reasons why policy makers chose the policies they did. We argue that the mentality of the gold standard was pervasive and compelling to the leaders of the interwar economy. It was expressed and reinforced by the discourse among these leaders. It was opposed and finally defeated by mass politics, but only after the interaction of national policies had drawn the world into the Great Depression.

‘From Moscow to Vichy’ chronicles the political trajectory of Jules Teulade, Albert Vassart and Henri Barbé, three French labour militants of modest origins who were rapidly whisked into the top ranks of the French Communist Party (PCF) in the early 1920s, but later fell out of favour with Moscow just as the PCF entered its halycon years in the mid-to-late 1930s. Each of them, though for different reasons, turned against their former Russian patrons so violently that political participation in the ‘anti-Communist’ Vichy regime became thinkable. An examination of their unpublished memoirs – long ignored by Gaullist and communist historians, to whom the recollections of ex-Communist Vichy ‘collaborators’ gave little comfort – reveals both the powerful allure the Russian Revolution had for its earliest devotees, and the profound disillusionment that could result for working-class Communists who saw their faith in Moscow betrayed. In their stories, and those of others like them, we can discern something of the devastating fallout of Moscow's invasion of French politics between the two world wars.

There has been extensive debate on changing attitudes within the French left-wing intelligentsia in the decades following the Second World War and more specifically on why so many intellectuals became fellow travellers and were attracted to Stalinism in the period between 1945 and 1953. Esprit's reactions to de-Stalinisation from the time of the Russian invasion of Hungary in 1956 to the Soviet suppression of the Czech attempt to reform communism from within in 1968 are of interest, since Esprit was the most prominent Catholic left-wing but non-Marxist journal in France. In view of Esprit's very strong reaction to the Hungarian Revolution, its relative silence in 1968 on the drama that was being played out in Czechoslovakia requires explanation. Finally, because Esprit broke with communism in late 1956, intellectuals writing for that journal experienced little difficulty in adjusting to the new French intellectual climate of the mid-1970s.

This study attempts to explain how in the twentieth century the concept of a European order which had evolved from the European balance of the nineteenth century, but with an added democratic dimension after 1919 and 1945, played a role in international relations, despite the two world wars which almost put an end to it; how it helped to sustain the concept of a minimum of European solidarity, despite numerous national and ideological conflicts; and how, at the start of a new century, this concept may again be significant for a continent that has not had a similar opportunity to establish a lasting peace since the Congress of Vienna. The concept of a European order may in particular serve as a way of accommodating Russia, which has no real prospect of becoming a member of the European Union.

This article is a reassessment of F. G. Stambrook's well-known claim that Lord D'Abernon was the architect of German Locarno diplomacy. It suggests that Stambrook did not fully understand D'Abernon's relationship with the Luther–Stresemann government, and in particular it seeks to place German Locarno diplomacy within the wider context of German foreign policy in the period. It throws new light not only on the D'Abernon–von Schubert relationship but on the dynamic forces at work within the German Foreign Ministry. The article also contains a brief assessment of German relations with the United States.

By analysing the Anglo-German talks about financial compensation for the cost of British troops in West Germany, this article seeks to clarify the linkages between Britain's security and European and monetary policies. The ideological commitment of British politicians to a reserve currency role for sterling had a deep impact on Britain's relations to Europe, particularly the Federal Republic. By consistently threatening to cut its military commitment on the Continent and by minimising it to a question of financial expediency, London failed to draw any political capital from its troops. This became very visible in the field of European integration. The conflict on currency issues and troop deployment was a crucial element in preventing closer relations between the Federal Republic and the United Kingdom in the 1950s and 1960s.

This article examines the interaction between Danish European and Nordic attitudes and policies in the postwar period. Attention is primarily dedicated to an analysis of how Nordic attitudes and policies have influenced Denmark's relations with Europe, and especially with the EEC/EU project. The article highlights how this interaction has moved through several different phases, and how priorities have shifted over time, with the Nordic policies functioning as an alternative to, as a platform for, and as a supplement to, Danish European policies. Despite the fact that most of the political elite early on lost belief in Norden as an alternative to Europe, this idea, stimulated by the intensive official and private cultivation of Nordic co-operation, kept its attraction among broad segments of the population. As a consequence a schism has developed between elite and popular attitutudes twoards European integration, and part of this schism must be explained with reference to how the vision of a Nordic alternative has continued to serve as a de-legitimiser of Danish involvement with the EEC/EU. However, this interdependence may be entering a new phase as a result of Finland and Sweden entering the EU in 1995.

The contrast between the European civil wars in the first half of the century and the contribution of a uniting and united Europe to the maintenance of the ‘free’ Western world in the second half is so marked as to suggest that no single explanation of this massive change will suffice. Only an analysis of conjunctures can reveal what divides and unites the countries of Europe and assess Europe's impact on the world. This paper combines an assessment of four lengthy periods (pre-First World War, interwar, divided Europe and post-Cold War) with a secular view of Europe's position and role in world politics and the international economy. It consists of two parts: a brief account of the basic thesis and of the characteristics of the idea of ‘Europe’, and an historical analysis of the four periods.

This essay considers the basic differences between the development of the modern nation-state in west and east European contexts. It suggests that, because the foundations of state formation in the latter in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries were ethnonationalist, a long road lies ahead in eastern Europe before the region can free itself from its lengthy captivity between the bad extremes of Empire on the one hand and the ethnonational Nation-State on the other. It disputes the idea that ethnocultural homogeneity within the borders of the nation-state provides a viable solution, even if the way to the creation of such homogeneity may be painful, and claims that policies which aim to create this ethnocultural homogeneity tend to prolong the swing of the region's political organisation between Empire and Nation-State. The only way out of the dilemma would appear to be the inclusion of these states in the processes of voluntary (non-imperial) regional and European supranational integration.

Between 1958 and 1963 Charles de Gaulle attempted to replace supranational integration in Europe with a French-dominated confederation able to become a ‘Third Force’ in the Cold War. The United States took a tolerant approach toward de Gaulle's proposals, in the hope of modifying them to suit American goals. It hoped to contain the anti-supranational and anti-American aspects of the plan and channel it to increase the cohesion of Western Europe so that the continent would become a stronger American partner. When European supporters of the Amercian view of the confederation refused to follow de Gaulle's more sweeping ambitions, he abandoned the plan and turned to a unilateral foreign policy instead.

The construction of Europe is often teleologically addressed as a result of an unstoppable trend towards federalism. Another angle on this history gives access to another logic: that of a European kind of nation-state which considers European integration not as an element in its decline, but as a tool to reorganise its power. This new youth for the old nation-state was linked as much to the historical context of the 1950s–1970s as to the specific rules of policy-making and to the economic regulation focus of the European Community.

Within one week of his election to the presidency of the Fifth Republic de Gaulle had taken a number of decisions which were to lay the basis for the foreign and economic policies pursued throughout his tenure of office. Contrary to all expectations de Gaulle confirmed his support for the European Economic Community, against the initial advice of his ministers he devalued the franc, and at variance with his partners in the EEC he vetoed Britain's plans to set up a free trade area in Europe. This article examines the reasons for de Gaulle's critical policy choices.

In response to the atrocities committed during and after the First World War and the need to create a stable east European settlement, the diplomats in Paris constructed the world's first system of international protection for minorities. The League of Nations, charged with the enforcement of the Minority Treaties, set up a cautious ‘political’ system, which failed either to shield minorities or pacify their governments. No international system was revived after the Second World War, but since the fall of communism, Europe – looking forward to the future as well as back to the past – has organised new supranational institutions to protect endangered religious and national groups.

Marc Olivier Baruch, Servir l'Etat français: L'administration en France de 1940 à 1944, preface by Jean-Pierre Azéma (Paris: Fayard, 1997), 737 pp., FF 180, ISBN 2–213–59930–0.

François Bloch-Lainé and Claude Gruson, Hauts Fonctionnaires sous l'Occupation (Paris: Editions Odile Jacob, 1996), 283 pp., FF 130, ISBN 2–738–10419–3.

Claude Singer, L'Université libérée, l'université épurée (1943–1947) (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1997), 430 pp., FF 185, ISBN 2–251–38037–x.

Bureaucracies are so famously capable of destroying the best-laid plans of reformers that historians often take their power to resist or collaborate for granted. In the burgeoning field of Vichy France, for example, we have studies of the ideologies of the well-known collaborators and of Vichy's ’National Revolution‘ as well as studies of the havoc those ideologies wreaked on the country and the growing opposition to both the ideas and the consequences. What we do not have is a very clear picture of how those ideas became consequences. The question is important because, unlike eastern European countries where Nazi occupation was naked and brutal, the French ended up amply serving the German cause almost despite themselves and at remarkably low cost to the Germans in terms of personnel. The French were not terrorised into turning over their Jews, their young people, or their crops at gunpoint in the way that, say, the Poles were. And yet they turned them over. Were the French, then, Nazis willing to give their all for the cause? Certainly not: far too many heroic men and women preferred to die as resistants rather than help the Germans.

The rise of big business is one of the most important phenomena of the twentieth century. This article reflects on its role in Europe's economy and society. Four aspects are given particular attention. The first concerns the extent to which big business can be considered as a European (as opposed to a US) phenomenon. The second considers the balance between common European characteristics (persistence of family ownership, extent of state involvement) and national specificities (company size, corporate governance, education and training, career patterns). A third part discusses the contribution of big business to economic development, especially the controversies surrounding the ‘Chandlerian’ model, based on the US experience, as well as the discrepancies between business performance and economic performance. Finally, the article warns about the pitfalls of a simplistic ‘cultural’ approach to business history.

Ian Bremmer and Ray Taras, eds., New States, New Politics: Building the Post-Soviet Nations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 743 pp., ISBN 0–521–57101–4

Bruno Coppieters, Alexei Zverev and Dmitri Trenin, eds., Commonwealth and Independence in Post-Soviet Eurasia (London: Frank Cass, 1998), 232 pp., ISBN 0–714–64480–3

Leslie Holmes, Post-Communism: an Introduction (Oxford: Polity Press, 1997), 260 pp., ISBN 0–745–61311–x

Michael Mandelbaum, ed., Post-Communism: Four Perspectives (US Council of Foreign Relations, 1996), 208 pp., ISBN 0–876–09186–9

Ilya Prizel, National Identity and Foreign Policy: Nationalism and Leadership in Poland, Russia and Ukraine (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 443 pp., ISBN 0–521–57157–x

Richard Rose, William Mishler and Christian Haerpfer, Democracy and Its Alternatives: Understanding Post-Communist Societies (Oxford: Polity Press, 1998), 270 pp., ISBN 0–745–61926–6

Barnett R. Rubin and Jack Snyder, Post-Soviet Political Order (London/New York: Routledge, 1998), 201 pp., ISBN 0–415–17068–0

Graham Smith, Vivien Law, Andrew Wilson, Annette Bohr and Edward Allworth, Nation-Building in Post-Soviet Borderlands: The Politics of National Identities (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 304 pp., ISBN 0–521–59045–0

Vladimir Tismaneanu, Fantasies of Salvation: Democracy, Nationalism, and Myth in Post-Communist Europe (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1998), 217 pp., ISBN 0–691–04826–6

Gordon Wightman, ed., Party Formation in East-Central Europe: Post-Communist Politics in Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland and Bulgaria (Vermont: Edward Elgar, 1995), 270 pp., ISBN 1–858–898132–8

It is now about 10 years since the communist bloc ceased to exist (1989 is the year when communism was defeated in central-eastern Europe, and in 1991 its bastion – the Soviet Union – fell). What it left behind are a couple of die-hard communist survivor-states, an urge to ‘rethink’ or ‘re-define’ many fundamental concepts of political science, and a large swathe of land that is still to be properly categorised in registers of comparative political science. ‘Post-communism’ is the most popular term to cover this territory. But does it refer to something real today, or does it just express some kind of intellectual inertia? How much do the ‘post-communist countries’ still have in common with each other and to what extent are they different from any others?