THE SUNDAY TIMES NUMBER ONE BESTSELLER A WATERSTONES POLITICS PAPERBACK OF THE YEAR, 2018 The Strange Death of Europe is a highly personal account of a continent and culture caught in the act of suicide. Declining birth-rates, mass immigration and cultivated self-distrust and self-hatred have come together to make Europeans unable to argue for themselves and incapable of resisting their own comprehensive change as a society. This book is not only an analysis of demographic and political realities, but also an eyewitness account of a continent in self-destruct mode. It includes reporting from across the entire continent, from the places where migrants land to the places they end up, from the people who appear to welcome them in to the places which cannot accept them. Told from this first-hand perspective, and backed with impressive research and evidence, the book addresses the disappointing failure of multiculturalism, Angela Merkel's U-turn on migration, the lack of repatriation and the Western fixation on guilt. Murray travels to Berlin, Paris, Scandinavia, Lampedusa and Greece to uncover the malaise at the very heart of the European culture, and to hear the stories of those who have arrived in Europe from far away. In each chapter he also takes a step back to look at the bigger issues which lie behind a continent's death-wish, answering the question of why anyone, let alone an entire civilisation, would do this to themselves? He ends with two visions of Europe – one hopeful, one pessimistic – which paint a picture of Europe in crisis and offer a choice as to what, if anything, we can do next.

A major new book by New York Times bestselling author and geopolitical forecaster George Friedman (The Next 100 Years), with a bold thesis about coming events in Europe. This provocative work examines “flashpoints,” unique geopolitical hot spots where tensions have erupted throughout history, and where conflict is due to emerge again. “There is a temptation, when you are around George Friedman, to treat him like a Magic 8 Ball.” —The New York Times Magazine With remarkable accuracy, George Friedman has forecasted coming trends in global politics, technology, population, and culture. In Flashpoints, Friedman focuses on Europe—the world’s cultural and power nexus for the past five hundred years . . . until now. Analyzing the most unstable, unexpected, and fascinating borderlands of Europe and Russia—and the fault lines that have existed for centuries and have been ground zero for multiple catastrophic wars—Friedman highlights, in an unprecedentedly personal way, the flashpoints that are smoldering once again. The modern-day European Union was crafted in large part to minimize built-in geopolitical tensions that historically have torn it apart. As Friedman demonstrates, with a mix of rich history and cultural analysis, that design is failing. Flashpoints narrates a living history of Europe and explains, with great clarity, its most volatile regions: the turbulent and ever-shifting land dividing the West from Russia (a vast area that currently includes Ukraine, Belarus, and Lithuania); the ancient borderland between France and Germany; and the Mediterranean, which gave rise to Judaism and Christianity and became a center of Islamic life. Through Friedman’s seamless narrative of townspeople and rivers and villages, a clear picture of regions and countries and history begins to emerge. Flashpoints is an engrossing analysis of modern-day Europe, its remarkable past, and the simmering fault lines that have awakened and will be pivotal in the near future. This is George Friedman’s most timely and, ultimately, riveting book.

The history of Britain's complex relationship with Europe, untangled Is Britain a part of Europe? The British have been ambivalent on this question since the Second World War, when the Western European nations sought to prevent the return of fascism by creating strong international ties throughout the Continent. Britain reluctantly joined the Common Market, the European Community, and ultimately the European Union, but its decades of membership never quite led it to accept a European orientation. In the view of the distinguished political scientist Vernon Bogdanor, the question of Britain’s relationship to Europe is rooted in “the prime conflict of our time,” the dispute between the competing faiths of liberalism and nationalism. This concise, expertly guided tour provides the essential background to the struggle over Brexit.

'Mak is the history teacher everyone should have had' Financial Times From the author of the internationally acclaimed In Europe, a stunning history of our present, examining the first two decades of this most fragile and fraught new millennium. How did the great European dream turn sour? And where do we go from here? In this illuminating book, Geert Mak - one of Europe's best-loved commentators - charts the seismic events that have shaped people's lives over the past twenty years. He moves through the rocky expansion of the EU, the aftermath of 9/11 and terrorist attacks across Europe, the 2008 financial crash and the euro crisis, and on to the rise of right-wing populism and Brexit. Like no other, Mak blends history, politics and culture with the stories and experiences of the many Europeans he meets on his travels. He brings this continent to life, and asks- what role does Europe now play, and how might we face our fresh challenges together? 'A powerful, humane and serious mind' Guardian 'Mak is a truly cosmopolitan chronicler' Independent

In this volume we approach the question of what it is to be European by considering the way in which citizens talk about their everyday lives, as they are perceived against the background of Europe and European issues. Hence, the volume will offer insights into the rarely glimpsed micro political world of ordinary talk and explore the way in which such talk in social interaction and other spheres might help us understand what Europe means to a range of its citizens. Using a range of broadly discursive approaches we will touch on, inter alia, issues of identity, youth, borders, ethnicity, local politics, and minority languages. In the end, we suggest, it is a common sense view of pragmatic utility that centres what it is to be European, and this is something which is continually fluid and shifting within ever changing social, historical and political circumstances.

This book for children (roughly 9 to 12 years old) gives an overview of Europe and explains briefly what the European Union is and how it works.--Publisher's description.

This book offers a new critical history of the idea of Europe from classical antiquity to the present day.