The collapse of the Iron Curtain, the renationalization of eastern Europe, and the simultaneous eastward expansion of the European Union have all impacted the way the past is remembered in today's ...eastern Europe. At the same time, in recent years, the Europeanization of Holocaust memory and a growing sense of the need to stage a more "self-critical" memory has significantly changed the way in which western Europe commemorates and memorializes the past. The increasing dissatisfaction among scholars with the blanket, undifferentiated use of the term "collective memory" is evolving in new directions. This volume brings the tension into focus while addressing the state of memory theory itself.
This book's chapters reflect on ways forward for the European Union at a time of global crisis and profound change. The chapters debate the institutional and political consequences of the Lisbon ...Treaty, the reform of economic governance in light of the economic and financial crisis, and Europe's global role in a rapidly changing international and regional environment. The volume is divided into three parts: Part I focuses on the EU'institutions and the question of leadership in an EU27+. Part II concentrates on the key elements of a new international socio-economic consensus. Part III discusses the stakes in the agonising search for the EU's global role in a post-Lisbon and post-crisis world. A concluding chapter pulls the themes of the volume together and looks to the future.
There is much heated rhetoric about the widening gulf between Europe and America. According to the American right, Europeans are lazy, defeatist and irreligious, while Americans are entrepreneurial, ...optimistic, and pious. And according to Europeans, America is harsh, dominated by the market, crime-ridden, violent, and sharp-elbowed.
But are the US and Europe so different? Peter Baldwin, one of the world's leading historians of comparative social policy, thinks not, and in this bracingly argued but remarkably informed polemic, he lays out how similar the two continents really are. Drawing on the latest evidence from sources such as the United Nations, the World Bank, IMF, and other international organizations, Baldwin offers a fascinating comparison of the United States and Europe, looking at the latest statistics
on the economy, crime, health care, education and culture, religion, the environment, and much more. It is a book filled with surprising revelations. For most categories of crime, for instance, America is safe and peaceful by European standards. But the biggest surprise is that, though there are many
differences between America and Europe, in almost all cases, these differences are no greater than the differences among European nations. Europe and the US are, in fact, part of a common, big-tent grouping. America is not Sweden, for sure. But nor is Italy Sweden, nor France, nor even Germany. And who says that Sweden is Europe? Anymore than Vermont is America?
Writing with flair and armed with an impressive stock of evidence, Baldwin paints a truly eye-opening portrait of Europe and America. Anyone interested in American foreign relations-or simply curious about American and European society-will want to read this revelatory volume.
