Victoria Martín de la Torre (Madrid, 1973) has been a press officer of the Group of Socialists and Democrats in the European Parliament since 2008. She previously worked as a journalist mainly in the weekly Tiempo, where she was head of the foreign desk. She is a Fulbright scholar, and holds two Master’s degrees: one in Journalism by Columbia University (1999) and the other in European Politics and Administration by the College of Europe (2003).

• Contents: First decade of European integration (1948–1957) – Backgrounds of and personal relationships between the EU founding fathers – Philosophical and spiritual thinking behind the early stages of EU integration – Catholic Church and European politics from the late 19th century to 1957.

«There are books that have a taste from the very first to the last page and this is one of them. It is however, actually tackling an apparently austere subject, the birth of Community Europe. On first appearances, it is not one of the most attractive or seductive themes. But there you go, the talent of the author is such that the book is a real treat, finely crafted and reads like a novel, full of suspense.» (Michel Theys, Bulletin Quotidien Europe 11185, 2014)