This is a (growing) collection of books, brochures and websites presenting the idea, history, and inner workings of the European Union as an assembly of nation states who that way try to homogenize their policies and legislation. Materials collected here are meant for the "normal" or "academic" reader; they are not meant for the reader in need of explicitly simple forms of expression.

This is a (growing) collection of books, brochures and websites presenting the idea, history, and inner workings of the European Union as an assembly of nation states who that way try to homogenize their policies and legislation. Materials collected here are meant for the "normal" or "academic" reader; they are not meant for the reader in need of explicitly simple forms of expression. (For such works, please refer to the page Books etc. on the EU in easily accessible language.) This little bibliography is in now way exhaustive, and it is not meant to be. Rather it is a selection of works that the authors of this websites (i.e. the HYS project team members) personally recommend for the purpose.

In English

Daniel Kenealy, John Peterson, Richard Corbett (2019): The European Union. How does it work? Fifth Edition. Oxford University Press.

This book of 310 pages deals in eleven chapters with the history of the European Union, its insitutions, its policies and how they are made, its forms of democracy, and its relations to the outside world, for example when new countries enter. As the fifth edition was issued in 2019, it includes also a chapter on the decision of the United Kingdom to quit membership (a process commonly called "Brexit").

Publications Office of the European Union (2020): The European Union. What it is and what it does. Luxembourg. Print edition ISBN 978-92-79-93648-8 (

English version; available also in all other European languages; available also as PDF for download. – This is a brochure presenting the EU and its policies. Nicely designed. The language however is complex and uses predominantly expert terminology.

Publications Office of the European Union (2021): Let’s Explore Europe! Print edition ISBN 978-92-76-22840-0

English version; available also in all other European languages; available also as PDF for download. This brochure is nicely desigend, for a target public of young readers 12-15 years old.

In German

Olaf Leiße (2019): Europäische Union für Dummies. Weinheim. ISBN 978-3-527-71376-9

This book of 370 pages comes in the "for dummies" form, from the outside, but the text in the inside is complex enough. Providing all the necessary information about EU institutions and EU policy topics even for students of political science, its language is academic in bad way.