Home › Books & Reviews › Capsule Reviews › The Transformation Of Western Europe

The Transformation Of Western Europe

William Wallace
Reviewed by Fritz Stern
Winter 1990/91
The Transformation Of Western Europe
William Wallace
Council on Foreign Relations Press (for The Royal Institute of Internationa
1990
122 pp.
$14.95
Login or Register to leave a comment.

A brilliant summary of the changes in Western Europe, rightly emphasizing the uneven march to integration and seeing Brussels as much a consequence as a cause of deep changes in European life. A model of succinct analysis, with a mastery of the relevant literature. Lucidly presented by a well-known British expert on all aspects of contemporary affairs in Europe.

Related

Essay, Sep/Oct 1993
Freedom and its Discontents
Fritz Stern

After 40 years of division, the two former halves of Germany are discovering the psychological stresses of unity. The collapse of the German Democratic Republic released East Germans from public control and authoritarian intimidation. But with freedom, they are having to learn to make choices and to live with risk and uncertainty. West Germans are resentful at the cost of reunification and arrogant about the sad state of their Eastlander brethren. Both halves of Germany will have to deal with their separate and joint pasts. They should expect moral and psychological unity to take longer than the material recuperation of the east.

Read
Review Essay, Nov/Dec 1996
The Goldhagen Controversy: One Nation, One People, One Theory?
Fritz Stern

Daniel Goldhagen's book on the Holocaust--condemning the German "eliminationist" mindset toward Jews--has become an international bestseller and a datum in German-American relations. Pity, because it is a simplistic, monocausal, and unhistorical explanation of one of the most complex horrors in history. For Goldhagen, as for the Nazis, Hitler is Germany.

Read
Essay, Oct 1977
The Giant from Afar: Visions of Europe from Algiers to Tokyo
Fritz Stern

That Western Europe is in a state of disarray has become a commonplace. The headlines proclaim it, the capital flight confirms it. After a generation of unprecedented prosperity and progress, the West European nations, though still remarkably strong, are encountering a network of difficulties that threatens them in various realms and that seems to defy known remedies.

Read
Cover image

In the Magazine

November/December 2009, 6, 88
Essay
The Dollar and the Deficits
C. Fred Bergsten

The global economic crisis has revealed the folly of large U.S. budget and trade deficits, as well as of the strong dollar that makes them possible. If it is serious about recovery, the United States must balance the budget, stimulate private saving, and embrace a declining dollar.
Read