This text provides an invaluable contribution towards understanding the EU as a political international entity. The book aims to navigate the reader through the evolution of the EU, its composition alongside providing a fruitful discussion on the impact of its many policies to include economic and social. Finally it positions the EU's role as global actor, in particular providing insights on its relations with the US and China.

Tasnim Ahmed, Liverpool John Moores University, UK

McCormick provides an authoritative and accessible introduction to the EU's history, institutions, decision-making processes and policies. It is an ideal starting point for anyone wanting to understand how the EU has developed, what it does today and how it might evolve in the future.

Graham Timmins, University of Birmingham, UK

John McCormick's Understanding the European Union: A Concise Introduction is the best available text of its kind. Both brief and readable, it provides students, and all readers, with the most important basic information about the historical development, governing institutions, policy-making process, and key internal and external policies of the EU. Anyone reading this book will come away with a greater understanding of what the EU is and is not, how it has developed in the context of repeated crises over the years, and how it has transformed the nature of European states and the lives of their citizens.

Michael Braun, Valdosta State University, US

What is the European Union? And how can we explain it? The textbook, and book, to understand the relationship of the EU and member states, its citizens and the role it plays in the everyday policy making; and to further address the role of the EU in the world and making sense of the poly-crises experienced through the years and what the Eu represents for countries that are willing to join and the country, the UK, that left. An important resource for any module on the EU, as an idea and an international organisation.

Simona Guerra, University of Surrey, UK