The British relationship with Europe has long been a paradoxical one, and Britain's relation to the European Union (EU) is likewise full of contradictions and ironies. This fact, frequently noted, is amply underscored by N. J. Crowson's The Conservative Party and European Integration since 1945: At the Heart of Europe? The book explores the Conservative Party's dealings, and internal debates over how to deal, with a Europe that, since the 1950s, has become increasingly integrated.

Crowson tracks the Conservative Party's evolving stance on European integration, but more than that, he highlights the party's dual contribution to the European project. Both within Britain and across the Channel, the Conservatives are today understood to be the anti-European party—and for good reason. Throughout the 1980s, Margaret Thatcher steadfastly opposed the transfer of national powers to European institutions, calling instead for a scaled-down Community whose basis would be more intergovernmental than supranational. Furthermore, during her first five years in office, she relentlessly pursued naked British interests within what was then the European Community, paralyzing the policy process for five years, until Britain's exasperated partners finally granted the United Kingdom a budget rebate. And, more recently, as he became Conservative Party leader, David Cameron's posturing on the EU has again bathed the Conservatives in a Euroskeptic light. Ever since Thatcher, the British Conservatives have largely been seen as footdraggers and obstructionists within the EU.

But, and here Crowson's book provides a much-needed corrective, the Conservatives have not always taken that approach to Europe, and to paint the party with a broad brush, as simply anti-European, misses the major contributions to the European project that the party has made. Crowson points to a “Europeanist” wing of the party that has been a more or less constant fixture, albeit sometimes a small minority. More important, as Crowson documents, at key points, the Conservative Party has been in the vanguard of the pro-Europe movement in Britain: while Atlee's postwar Labour government opposed any European cooperation that would hinder its capacity for domestic transformation, Winston Churchill, as head of the opposition Conservative party, was the foremost figure of the European unification movement. In the fall of 1946, a mere six months after (more famously) warning the world that an iron curtain had descended across the continent, Churchill called for the creation of a United States of Europe, and, in the two years following, he was at the heart of the European unification movement. And it was the Conservative Party, under Harold MacMillan, that first took the plunge and applied for British membership in the European Economic Community (EEC), the precursor to today's EU.

Crowson's goal for the book is to explain why the Conservatives have moved from the European party in Britain to the anti-European party, an interesting and important question. He presents his explanation in three steps.

First, he outlines the contours of the party's internal debates over European issues, highlighting the divisions within the party. Here Crowson chronicles, at least briefly, the party's debates about everything from Britain's role in the world to the economic policies of the EEC and from Europe's military defense to the pivotal question of whether European integration should preserve national sovereignty or promote European federalism.

Second, Crowson identifies the pro-European elements of the party, which he calls the Conservative Europeanists, from 1945 to the present. He traces the various reasons why this group has supported European integration and provides an interesting discussion of how—and through which forums—they have promoted their views within the party. And then he explores why the Europeanists’ views dominated the party at certain times but not others. The cumulative point of these two analytical steps (comprising chaps. 3 and 4) is to show how the Conservative Party's European message is defined.

The third step in Crowson's analysis, then, is to show how that European message is “sold” to the three different audiences that the party leadership must satisfy: the Westminster parliamentary party, the broader activist base of the party, and the voters (chap. 5). As a counterpoint, Crowson also looks at the other side of the political divide, charting the trajectory of the Euroskeptics within the Conservative Party (chap. 6). Although Crowson argues that it was only after the Conservatives went into opposition in 1997 that the party became “officially” anti-European (127), he notes that there has been a long history of British hostility toward associating with Europe.

Analytically, this is the heart of the book. This core is preceded by two chapters that chronicle the process of European integration from 1945 to 2006 (chaps. 1 and 2) and followed by a chapter that looks in depth at the engagement of British Conservatives with their Continental counterparts, ranging from ad hoc meetings to formal cooperation, both within the EU institutions as well as in European (but non-EU) institutions like the Council of Europe (chap. 7).

Crowson states right up front how his book differs from other studies of Britain within the EU: “Its primary focus is upon what the Conservative Party thought on the issue [of European integration] and how its views impacted upon its leaders” (7). He intends to look, not just at political leaders, but at the party as a whole. And while individual figures loom large in Crowson's explanation of why the party acted the way it did, they are not always the usual suspects from other accounts—the prime ministers and their cabinets. Crowson's account also recognizes the significance for the party's European strategy of numerous party members, and especially of individual Europhile members of the European Parliament. Specifically, he highlights the roles of Europhiles like Douglas Dodds-Parker, Ursula Branston, Diana Elles, and Tufton Beamish—not exactly household names for the casual observer of British politics, or even of the Conservative Party. But while Crowson aims at a less top-down approach, the emphasis in explaining the Conservative Party's European message remains on key individuals; it is key players, rather than a general consensus within the party, who shape the party's particular European trajectory.

Crowson's purpose is to “explain how, and why, the [Conservative] party has undergone such a reversal in attitudes” toward European integration (1). This is certainly an important question, but in framing the project in this way, Crowson misses an opportunity to reach out to a broader audience of EU specialists. Students of the EU are hungry for case studies that show how European-level “causes” yield national “effects.” The trend in EU studies over the 1990s was to move away from theoretical studies of European integration as a process (i.e., attempting to theorize how and why it happens) toward empirical studies of the effects of European integration—on policies, on politics, and, yes, on parties. It would certainly have been well within Crowson's capabilities to include a chapter illustrating the ways that specific EU initiatives—the Euro and the European Constitution leap immediately to mind—play out within the Conservative Party and the way that the Conservatives influence how those debates play out in British society more broadly. Such an analysis would have been an extremely interesting contribution to a broader EU literature, expanding the book's appeal to an audience beyond specialists of British political parties. Nevertheless, for those interested in a finely researched analysis of the Conservative Party's U-turn on the question of European integration, this book is essential reading.