Materializing Europe Transnational Infrastructures and the Project of Europe

This collection looks at transnational infrastructures, from the first ceremonial train of the European Coal and Steel Community to the new border signs replacing checkpoints along motorways, and how such infrastructural links are part of the long history of European unification.

ALEXANDER BADENOCH  is Guest fellow at the Foundation for the History of Technology, Technical University Eindhoven, The Netherlands and author of Voices in Ruins, co-winner of the IAMHIST prize for the best work of media and history in the years 2007 -2008.

ANDREAS FICKERS  is Associate Professor of Comparative Media History at the University of Maastricht, The Netherlands.

Introduction: Europe Materializing? Toward a Transnational History of European Infrastructures--A.Badenoch&--A.Fickers
PART I: QUESTIONING THE CONNECTIONS BETWEEN INFRASTRUCTURES AND EUROPE
Detours around Africa: The Connection between Developing Colonies and Integrating Europe--D.van Laak
Interlude 1: The Oliven Plan: the Long Life of Non-existent Network--V.Lagendijk
Myths of the European network: Constructions of Cohesion in Infrastructure Maps--A.Badenoch
Interlude 2: David Mitrany and Ernst Haas: Theorising a United Europe--W.Zaidi
Transnational infrastructures and the origins of European integration; J.Schot
PART II: MEDIATING EUROPE: MOVING THINGS, BUILDING SYSTEMS
Universalism or Regionalism? The Work of the Advisory and Technical Committee for Communications and Transit of the League of Nations--F.Schipper, V.Lagendijk&--I.Anastasiadou
Interlude 3: Louis Armand between United Atoms and Common Railways--C.Henrich-Franke
Feeding the Peoples of Europe: Transport Infrastructures and the Building of Transnational Cooling Chains in the Early Cold War, 1947-1960--E.van der Vleuten
Interlude 4: Mobilizing Europe's capital--F.Schipper
Eurocheque: Creating a 'common currency'. European Infrastructures for the Cashless Mass Payments System--B.Bonhage
Interlude 5: Georges Valensi, Europe Calling?--L.Laborie
Off the leash. The European Mobile Phone Standard (GSM) as a Transnational Telecommunications Infrastructure--P.Kammerer
PART III: EUROPE BETWEEN PROJECTS AND PROJECTIONS
Eventing Europe: Broadcasting and the mediated performances of Europe--A.Fickers&--S.Lommers
Interlude 6: The Radio Station Scale: a Materialized European Event--A.Fickers
From Sea to Shining Sea: Making Ends Meet on European Rivers--C.Disco
Interlude 6: Peaceful Atom: the Brief Career of a Symbol of Cooperation and Prosperity--D.van Lente
European Civil Aviation in an Era of Hegemonic Nationalism: Infrastructure, Air Mobility, and European Identity Formation, 1919-1933--E.Kranakis