What is Europe? What are the contents of the concept of Europe? And what defines European identity? Instead of only asking these classical questions, this volume also explores who asks these questions, and who is addressed with such questions. Who answers the questions, from which standpoints and for what reasons? Which philosophical, historical, religious or political traditions influence the answers? This book addresses its task in three parts. The first concentrates on the controversies around the meaning of Europe. The second focuses on the role of the European Union. The third discusses Europe and its relations to different types of otherness, or rather, non-European-ness. The volume produces a complex and plural picture of the concepts, ideas, debates and (ex)changes associated with the concept of Europe, and has a clear significance for today’s debates on European identity, Europeanization, and the EU.

What is Europe? What are the contents of the concept of Europe? And what defines European identity? Instead of only asking these classical questions, this volume also explores who asks these questions, and who is addressed with such questions. Who answers the questions, from which standpoints and for what reasons? Which philosophical, historical, religious or political traditions influence the answers? This book addresses its task in three parts. The first concentrates on the controversies around the meaning of Europe. The second focuses on the role of the European Union. The third discusses Europe and its relations to different types of otherness, or rather, non-European-ness. The volume produces a complex and plural picture of the concepts, ideas, debates and (ex)changes associated with the concept of Europe, and has a clear significance for today’s debates on European identity, Europeanization, and the EU.

The Meaning of Europe considers the wealth of contemporary and historical attitudes towards Europe and how these vary both within and between different nation-states.

Low fertility in Europe has given rise to the notion of a ‘fertility crisis’. This book shifts the attention from fertility decline to why people do have children, asking what children mean to them. It investigates what role children play in how young adults plan their lives, and why and how young adults make the choices they do. The book aims to expand our comprehension of the complex structures and cultures that influence reproductive choice, and explores three key aspects of fertility choices: the processes towards having (or not having) children, and how they are underpinned by negotiations and ambivalences how family policies, labour markets and personal relations interact in young adults’ fertility choices social differentiation in fertility choice: how fertility rationales and reasoning may differ among women and men, and across social classes Based on empirical studies from six nations – France, Scandinavia, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Germany and Italy (representing the high and low end of European variation in fertility rates) – the book shows how different economic, political and cultural contexts interact in young adults' fertility rationales. It will be of interest to students and scholars of sociology, anthropology, demography and gender studies.

For many observers, the European Union is mired in a deep crisis. Between sluggish growth; political turmoil following a decade of austerity politics; Brexit; and the rise of Asian influence, the EU is seen as a declining power on the world stage. Columbia Law professor Anu Bradford argues the opposite in her important new book The Brussels Effect: the EU remains an influential superpower that shapes the world in its image. By promulgating regulations that shape the international business environment, elevating standards worldwide, and leading to a notable Europeanization of many important aspects of global commerce, the EU has managed to shape policy in areas such as data privacy, consumer health and safety, environmental protection, antitrust, and online hate speech. And in contrast to how superpowers wield their global influence, the Brussels Effect - a phrase first coined by Bradford in 2012- absolves the EU from playing a direct role in imposing standards, as market forces alone are often sufficient as multinational companies voluntarily extend the EU rule to govern their global operations. The Brussels Effect shows how the EU has acquired such power, why multinational companies use EU standards as global standards, and why the EU's role as the world's regulator is likely to outlive its gradual economic decline, extending the EU's influence long into the future.

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.

In this new collection of essays, Adam Michnik—one of Europe’s leading dissidents—traces the post-cold-war transformation of Eastern Europe. He writes again in opposition, this time to post-communist elites and European Union bureaucrats. Composed of history, memoir, and political critique, In Search of Lost Meaning shines a spotlight on the changes in Poland and the Eastern Bloc in the post-1989 years. Michnik asks what mistakes were made and what we can learn from climactic events in Poland’s past, in its literature, and the histories of Central and Eastern Europe. He calls attention to pivotal moments in which central figures like Lech Walesa and political movements like Solidarity came into being, how these movements attempted to uproot the past, and how subsequent events have ultimately challenged Poland’s enduring ethical legacy of morality and liberalism. Reflecting on the most recent efforts to grapple with Poland’s Jewish history and residual guilt, this profoundly important book throws light not only on recent events, but also on the thinking of one of their most important protagonists.