Author: Pádraig Risteard Carmody.

Officials who toil for the European Union (EU), looking outwards from their base in Brussels, would be justified in feeling a little like Harry Potter: ‘No one understands me’. Of course, the EU has now been the subject of sustained, serious academic attention, commensurate with its role in European political and economic life, for more than 30 years (in English, and longer than that in French and German). The EU studies community has shed considerable, even impressive light on how this ‘uni- dentified political object’, in the words of Jacques Delors, works in practice. Yet, turnout in the European Parliament election fell again in 2009. Eurosceptic parties, again, made gains. Every once in a while, someone in the quality press makes a game attempt to explain why the EU exists and what it does. 1 Yet, le grand public in Europe seems not to know or care. Ordinary citizens beyond Europe even less: there has never been an opinion poll, to this reviewer’s knowledge, that has ever shown that a majority of Americans has even heard of the European Union. These three books, each in different ways, try to satisfy our ‘primordial need to get a handle on the EU’in such a way that might enlighten curious non-specialists but also add to our acquis académique. 2 Two of these volumes – by Hix and Menon – seek to reach audiences beyond the EU studies community. The other – edited by Hayward – is a more traditional collection of research-based essays. All three succeed in delivering fresh clarity on what must be the most obfuscatory system of gover- nance ever created.