The work is founded upon essays years after they were originally written, and includes portraits of particular individuals who were central to the process of European integration such as Jean Monnet who is described as being "an international adventurer on a grand scale".

The book concludes with a section discussing the nascence and progression of the idea of European unification from the Enlightenment Period onwards and how those concepts affect the future trajectory of the EU.

[2] Anderson is critical of the way that the EU has developed, but in terms that vary radically from the oft-repeated grievances that it is over-centralised or overly bureaucratic, declaring instead that "Today's EU, with its pinched spending (just over 1% of GDP), minuscule bureaucracy (around 16,000 officials, excluding translators), absence of independent taxation, and lack of any means of administrative enforcement, could in many ways be regarded as .

"[3] He also agrees with the general perspective of Alan Milward that the European project has been essentially driven by the logic of the nation-state, with rhetoric about federalism or post-nationalism being limited to language rather than reality.

In addition he praises the work of Christopher Caldwell and Robert Kagan, despite coming from a different political ideology from their conservative one.