Europa and the Bull places readers inside three international organizations that aimed to reshape the social and political landscape of Europe after the First World War: the Pan-European Union (PEU), the New Europe Group (NEG), and the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF). Of particular interest is how these groups and their members promoted plans for a continental federal government in Europe. This book explores why they thought federating Europe was desirable and what impact they imagined this would have on average individuals’ quality of life.

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As readers learn about the hopes and aspirations of the people in these three fascinating groups, they will find a very different portrayal of interwar federalists than what's typically presented by historians. Europa and the Bull challenges a pervasive belief that federalists between the wars were a small group of intellectual men. This study demonstrates a significant proportion of European integration advocates were women, particularly feminists. Equally illuminating, these groups demonstrate that many federalists gendered their plans for a European polity by prioritizing the “feminine” qualities they thought a new federal system of governance required. Many of them blamed the sense of crisis and chaos between the wars on the idea that the nation-state system was man-made. They believed women represented an alternative source of leadership and had a stronger propensity for cooperation; thus, unification advocates prioritized the role of women in creating a federal government in Europe.

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This book will be of interest to experts, students, and educated readers alike. Although the activism and ideas in this investigation came from people living in the 1920s, the concerns they expressed about political polarization, social and economic justice, women's rights, and the importance of combatting xenophobia in a global society will equally speak to many of us living in the 2020s.

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