Britain’s Europe: a thousand years of conflict and cooperation
BRENDAN SIMMS

Continental Drift: Britain and Europe from the end of Empire to the rise of Euroscepticism
BENJAMIN GROB-FITZGIBBON

When I studied history at Oxford the subject was neatly divided into “British history” and “European history”. This division between us and them lies deep in our psyche. There is something called “Britain” and there is something called “Europe”, and the latter is “over there”, foreign, menacing, full of Catholics or Communists who threaten our tranquil island life.

Churchill liked to say that “our weather comes from Europe”, while Mrs Thatcher put it more starkly:  “In my lifetime all our problems have come from mainland Europe and all the solutions have come from the English-speaking nations across the world.”

The strength of the books by the professor of the history of international relations at the University of Cambridge, Brendan Simms, and the American professor turned diplomat Benjamin Grob-Fitzgibbon is that they explode the myth of British exceptionalism.