What is solidarity and what makes us think it is something important? Is it just an abstract idea or something more like a prosocial practice that can grow to inform legal regulations and political decisions? How is it that solidarity is so widespread in everyday language while this rarely corresponds to concrete applications of this principle? And what kind of application does solidarity find in the European context, historically and in the present?

European Solidarity gathers insight into all these questions, from scholars in fields including philosophy, political science, international law, sociology, and intellectual history. By focusing on its conceptual genesis, the thinkers and contexts that contributed to its evolution, and the practices that aim at implementing it, this book provides an interdisciplinary picture of European solidarity, highlighting its main features, limits, and potentialities.