Too close a scrutiny, however, risks missing the forest for the trees. Levitt and Lord have succeeded in providing a valuable snapshot of the birth of Europe’s Economic and Monetary Union (EMU). As a snapshot, their book merits being appended as a supplementary text or even parcelled up for course use. The two great strengths of the volume are its accessibility and scope. Although written by experts who are clearly knowledgeable of both their subject and the literature, the volume itself is surprisingly free of digression. The authors engage in a few ripostes on matters of academic fixation such as Andrew Moravcsik’s claim that German motives were solely economic (p. 53). For the most part, however, Levitt and Lord restrict themselves to careful introduction and broad observation.

Their volume develops in three parts: a review of the political manœuvring leading up to EMU; a survey of the economic justifications for and implications of creating a single currency; and an institutional analysis of the impact of EMU on integration as a process. These three parts are stylistically distinct. The history is patient and informative. The economics is gentle but concise. The analysis is sophisticated and at times even speculative. The first two parts could easily be used in an introductory course on Europe. The third requires more background on Europe as prerequisite.

What the volume lacks is a strong internal coherence across the sections. The introductory chapter posits an argument that develops only in the cluster of analytic chapters toward the end. EMU has ‘raised public consciousness’ about the potential importance of European integration and, in the process, it has changed fundamentally the vocabulary of governance (p. 7). This is a powerful observation that warrants development. Given the fast pace of events in Europe, it is perhaps too much to expect a textbook on EMU to deliver such analytic depth in addition to fulfilling the usual requirements of accuracy, currency, comprehensiveness and accessibility. Levitt and Lord score high marks against a high degree of difficulty. In fairness, we should take it as a measure of their success that they leave the reader wanting more.