I have on my shelves a history of aviation that was published in 1902, about a year before the Wright brothers made their first successful powered flight. This is much the same thing, a history of postwar attitudes to European integration in British politics that was published in 2016, on the eve of the Brexit referendum. It's lovely, detailed, thorough historical writing by someone who's clearly read more briefing papers, cabinet minutes and politicians' memoirs than most of us could bear even to think about, but you can't help feeling that it's missing a certain amount of important context...

Grob-Fitzgibbon is particularly interested in the relationship between the decline of Britain's status as an imperial power and openness towards European union. He shows us Churchill and Ernest Bevin in 1945-51 (separately) arguing for a union of European countries ("...under British leadership", we should understand) that would defend our respective colonial interests and stand up to the Americans and Russians on equal terms — an idea which Bevin gave up when he realised that he would never have been able to stand up to Stalin over the Berlin blockade without US help. The foreign policy emphasis under Eden shifted back to the colonies and Commonwealth, but from 1956 on there was a general shift towards accepting that Britain was close to going bankrupt, and her colonial interests were historical and sentimental, rather than economically or geopolitically relevant. The Americans clearly had only a minor passing interest in what Britain did, so it was the Continent or nothing. As far as De Gaulle was concerned, of course, it would be "nothing", so not much came of that until he was finally pushed out and Britain joined the EEC in 1973.

Grob-Fitzgibbon interestingly notes that the immediate run-up to 1 January 1973 was the first time that opinion polls showed the British public having any serious doubts about the wisdom of joining the EEC. As long as the French were standing in the way, everyone wanted it, but from the moment it became a reality there was anguish about what we would do without unlimited supplies of New Zealand Cheddar. The arch-imperialist Enoch Powell formed the nucleus of anti-European movements on the right, harking back to "Britain's great days", whenever they might have been, whilst, more seriously in the short-term at least, the left wing of the Labour Party identified it all as a capitalist plot, and the party in general grasped it as a useful thing to disagree with the Tories about (notwithstanding the fact that it was Harold Wilson who had previously argued most strongly for joining). So there was the farce of the 1975 referendum, with half the Labour Party opposing the (Labour) government and half the Tory party supporting it. Plus ça change!

I found the first part of the book, covering periods I don't remember living through, quite interesting, but I felt the later parts got bogged down in narrative detail rather, without very much comment or analysis. Also, the very tight focus on political events and the exclusively Westminster point-of-view made it difficult to come to any real conclusions about what was going on. We hear a lot about correspondence between ministers and the governments of Commonwealth countries, for instance, but Grob-Fitzgibbon hardly ever gives us any figures about the actual amount of trade involved (and when he does, there's nothing to compare them with). Equally, we hear a lot about the results of meetings with foreign leaders as seen by the British, but the closest we get to hearing what the other side thought of it is an occasional follow-up note from a British ambassador in that country. ( )