Toward European Unity

Toward European Unity was a 1947 essay by George Orwell on the subject of European integration. In the essay, Orwell speculated about possible futures in which the world could fall to nuclear war or totalitarianism. He proposed the creation of a democratic socialist European Union as an alternative to such scenarios, although he also predicted that it would have to overcome opposition from imperial powers.

The essay represented both the culmination of Orwell's optimistic visions for a socialist future, which he had developed since the Spanish Civil War, as well as the beginning of his shift towards a deep-rooted pessimism that informed his dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four.