Written by one of the premier scholars on the European Union and hailed as the best undergraduate text on the subject, this book has been thoroughly revised and updated to include the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty. Clear and comprehensive, it "demystifies" one of the world's most important and least understood institutions. Roy H. Ginsberg contextualizes European integration through the foundation blocks of history, law, economics, and politics. He then breaks the EU down into its components so that they can be understood individually and in relation to the whole. Reconstructing the EU as a single polity, Ginsberg evaluates the EU's domestic and foreign policies and their effects on Europeans and non-Europeans alike. The author thus challenges students to see what the European Union truly represents: a unique experiment in regional cooperation and a remarkable model of conflict resolution for the world's troubled regions.