Two essential books that I think make very important and sophisticated arguments in favor of the EU "model" (a model as defined in broad strokes) and why most people - critics esp., but many advocates also - just don't "get" the EU. These critics (and advocates) are trying to force into a traditional conception of great power politics when it offers a means of moving beyond this mode of viewing the world. I would argue that the Gaullist as well as the American rightist critique of the EU both make this mistake. Anyway, I urge people to run out and buy Robert Collins's The Breaking of Nations and Mark Leonard's Why Europe Will Run The 21st Century Not only are these books very compelling in and of themselves, but I find them especially important in that both authors are basically arguing in favor of the EU model as the future of international relations from a Blairite, Atlanticist perspective.