This joint ETUC-ETUI publication takes stock of the 40-years history of the European Trade Union Confederation. On the basis of numerous unpublished documents, this book tells the story of the challenges, successes and failures of the ETUC over these fourty years. It combines a scientific and historical approach with a political one, the aim being to “reveal a rationale for action, a sense of coherence, and to identify the guiding principle that has characterised the – sometimes fraught – history of the ETUC”.