PArtecipazione e COnflitto
* The Open Journal of Sociopolitical Studies
http://siba-ese.unisalento.it/index.php/paco
ISSN: 1972-7623 (print version)
ISSN: 2035-6609 (electronic version)
PACO, Issue 13(1) 2020: 864-873
DOI: 10.1285/i20356609v13i1p864
Published in March 15, 2020
Work licensed under a Creative Commons Attribu-
tion-Non commercial-Share alike 3.0 Italian Li-
cense
PACO, ISSN: 2035-6609 - Copyright © 2020 - University of Salento, SIBA: http://siba-ese.unisalento.it
SYMPOSIUM – REVIEW/4
THE PARADOX OF EVERYDAY EUROPE: THE CRISIS OF THE
EUROPEAN PROJECT IN THE CONTEXT OF WIDESPREAD TRANS-
NATIONALISM
Gemma Scalise
University of Bergamo
This book was undoubtedly published at the most appropriate time. As I read it, the
newspapers report the approval by the United Kingdom's House of Commons of the
Withdrawal Agreement allowing the United Kingdom to leave the European Union on
January 31, 2020. Yet, as Favell and Recchi write in the book's introduction, "whether as
work, study and retirement abroad, employment of foreigners, friends' networks, travel,
tourism, knowledge of diversity, media use, the consumption of foreign food, music,
films ... Would we expect any European member state to be less Europeanised in a soci-
ological sense on these measures - even (perhaps especially even) the one that has now
voted itself out of the EU, the United Kingdom? " (p 4).
This is the all-European paradox that the book has the merit of clearly highlighting.
The time of publication is so appropriate because this book invites us to adopt a different
perspective on the process of European integration, an alternative vision detached from
the contingent crisis of Europe. Indeed, this book offers us the opportunity to see some-
thing that has been completely overshadowed by the noisy public and political debate