EUROPEAN BOOK REVIEWS

EUROPEAN BOOK REVIEW THE CAPITALeuropéenne – Robert Menasse

A pig's unexpected and disorderly run on a rainy evening through the streets of Brussels, a multilingual, multicultural city (commonly known as THE European political capital), an old man who survived Auschwitz, European officials, an assassin, an exalted Polish Catholic, a slightly offbeat Austrian economist, a loyal police superintendent, a lobbyist: in the first chapters, the main protagonists of The Capital already set the scene.

Robert Menasse, Austrian writer and translator, offers what one might suppose an entertaining detective or spy novel. But it is much more than that. Through the characters, we are presented with a human portrait of Europe, sketched out with great precision and veracity. We discover the mysteries of the European Commission, a multinational micro-society of civil servants, the hierarchy of the Directorates-General – DGs in insider language - the codes, the complex inner mechanisms, the ambitions, the inter-state competition. Also, the networks of influence, the "think tanks", the lobbies that gravitate around the institutions. It is a "journey into Eurocracy" (to use the title of an old book) in a sometimes caustic but realistic way, offered by a connoisseur of the Union and its institutions.

With the aim of restoring the prestige of the Commission, suffering a poor image amongst European opinion, the Big Jubilee Project is entrusted to the Communication Directorate of DG Education and Culture, nicknamed Noah's Ark. To counter the widespread perception that the Commission is an abstract bureaucracy, one of the officials puts forward the idea of having Holocaust survivors testify, as a reminder that what was to become the European Union was created so that the atrocities and disasters of the Second World War could not be perpetrated ever again.

Parallel to the preparation of this celebration, Commissioner Brunfaut's police investigation continues, pursuing the desperate flight to Poland of the "warrior of God", who hit the wrong target. But the instigators of the murder will not be unmasked: NATO, the Vatican? Everything is political... (sic). The presence of the pig might seem anecdotal, and yet its funny meanderings through the streets of Brussels is in some ways the Ariadne's thread of history, from its origin to its end.

The book, published in Austria in 2017, is particularly resonant in the present context, when we note with dismay the resurgence of nationalism, the social, economic and political difficulties of receiving migrants, religious terrorism... Each character, through his or her personal journey, is a symbol of European history. Through the voice of the character Alois Erhart, an economist, Robert Menasse ardently pleads the cause of "a Europe of sovereign citizens with equal rights (...) the dream of the Founding Fathers of the European unification project".

May 9 2020 will mark the 70th anniversary of the Schuman Declaration, the cornerstone of European integration, and The Capital, a militant work, offers the reader an original but also serious, sometimes harsh, unsettling way of challenging ourselves about the future we want for our Continent.

Book review by Cécile Antonini

Robert Menasse, The Capital, New York, WW Norton & Co, 2019, 416 pages, ISBN: 978-1-63149-786-5

European Book Review

CRASHED, HOW A DECADE OF FINANCIAL CRISIS CHANGED THE WORLD Adam Tooze

In his book Crashed, published in 2018, British historian Adam Tooze, a professor at Columbia University, New York, examines the root causes of the financial crisis that began in 2007 and spread across the global economic fabric after the collapse of Lehman Brothers in September 2008. It traces the course of this exceptional crisis and the way it was handled by the United States and the euro area, which, lacking a common fiscal policy, was severely destabilised.

However, the author stresses that "the crisis in the euro area is not a separate episode: it is a direct consequence of the 2008 shock". For him, "the very fact of assimilating this crisis to an internal problem in the euro area, centred on the political issues of public debt, was a political act. In the years after 2010, this interpretation became the object of a kind of transatlantic culture war in economic policy circles".

As a historian of the long term, Adam Tooze explains that the world order as we know it today is the result of this crisis. It upset the balance of power between the powers to the benefit of China. The United States and Europe have emerged weakened, while China has accentuated the financialization of its economy. The latter could therefore be the starting point for a future crisis, a hypothesis that is all the more alarming in view of the place that China now occupies in the world economy. At the same time, notes the author, Russia has turned to Beijing on the economic front by exporting massive amounts of gas and oil and has been able to achieve its geopolitical ambitions, first in Georgia in 2008, then in Ukraine in 2013-2014, with the annexation of the Crimea.

According to the author, the crisis has had other side effects that are more related to political and social issues. In Russia, Europe and the United States, it has acted as a factor in the resurgence of nationalist theories and a weakening of the bond of trust between citizens and their elected representatives. In Europe, it has led to a rise in euroscepticism in Poland and the United Kingdom. In the United States, it is the involvement of the political sphere in rescuing financial institutions to the detriment of helping more modest households (in light of the bankruptcy of the city of Detroit) that has fuelled this mistrust. A mistrust that has benefited the current President of the United States, Donald Trump.

At a time when Europe and the world are suffering a new crisis, of a totally different nature, Adam Tooze's book helps us to understand the lasting changes brought about by globalisation and perhaps to identify possible levers of change.

Book review by Léo Humbert

Adam Tooze, Crashed, How a Decade of Financial Crises Changed the World, London, Penguin Books Ltd., 2019, 720 pages, ISBN: 9780141032214

European Book Review

THE ROAD TO SOMEWHERE: THE NEW TRIBES SHAPING BRITISH POLITICS – David Goodhart

The Road to Somewhere, a work of non-fiction authored by the journalist David Goodhart, became one of the most seminal works of 2017 upon its publication in the aftermath of the Brexit referendum.

‘Modern politics has less to do with traditional positions of right versus left, and today has more to do with what I’d call the modern choice, which is open versus closed’.

The above quotation, attributed to a 2007 speech by Tony Blair, neatly encapsulates the central argument of the book. In examining a rising social and ideological divide which eventually culminated in the Brexit referendum, Goodhart identifies two groups in an increasing sense of conflict. The first group, ‘Anywheres’, are generally typical of the winners of globalisation, arising from generally liberal, university-educated backgrounds who are comfortable with the driving ideals of the European Union and free movement. Contrast this with the ‘Somewheres’, defined by Goodhart as those who feel attached to their place of origin and a set of traditional values or institutions, and thus remain wary or even openly hostile to the idea of the European Union, or its effects in mass immigration, increasing diversity or the slow but gradual change made to institutions such as religion or the family.

In analysing the Brexit referendum as a mere symptom of a deeper identity crisis, Goodhart sets out to analyse wider trends affecting this divide, such as the rise of the knowledge economy, the changing relationship between the State and the family, the enduring power of nationalism and populism in an increasingly globalised Europe, and the true degree of social mobility available.

In juxtaposing the arguments of the ‘Somewheres’ against the traditionally liberal arguments promoted by the European project, Goodhart seeks to chart the rise of two competing discourses, and how they may be altered to better reach the other side, instead of descending into a purely partisan conflict. The author chiefly uses the experience of the British referendum as a mirror to other European nations at large, with only limited references to similar factors driving the rise of nationalist forces in other European countries, such as France, Germany or Hungary, among others. However, the general tone of parallels with Britain’s European neighbours remains ever-present between the lines.

Despite some criticism by reviewers that Goodhart remains overly sympathetic the ‘Somewheres’ instead of being perfectly neutral, The Road to Somewhere is a compelling read for people on both sides of the Anywhere-Somewhere divide, if only to unearth the fairly compelling, note-worthy arguments put forward by either side.

Book review by Avtansh Behal

David Goodhart, The Road To Somewhere : The New Tribes shaping British Politics, London, Penguin Books Ltd., 2017, 304 pages, ISBN: 9780141986975

European Book Review

TRANS-EUROPE EXPRESS. TOURS OF A LOST CONTINENT – Owen Hatherley

Culture editor of Tribune and columnist for the Guardian, Owen Hatherley published Trans-Europe Express: Tours of a Lost Continent in 2018, an insightful book that offers a comprehensive tour of the political and architectural history of Europe, from Dublin, in Ireland to Lviv, in Ukraine. Neither a travel guide nor a history book, Trans-Europe Express explores what European cities have in common, and what belonging to the same continent, and in most cases to the EU, actually means. While cities may seem chaotic or a mere result of events happening on a much larger scale, their development is eminently political and deserves exploration.

The essence of the European city is also a question that British politicians and city planners tried to answer in the 1980s and 1990s, as they attempted to somewhat model Gateshead on Bilbao, Salford on Rotterdam, and Sheffield on Barcelona, Hatherley explains. Yet all of these towns voted to leave the EU in 2016 as they failed to truly integrate those European cultural and social projects into everyday life. But even on the continent, once one escapes the “most liveable” cities, Hatherley found that European towns were not so social, clean, walkable, egalitarian or multicultural. However, on reading the book, one thing becomes clear: the “European city” does not exist. Each of them is a singular combination of historical events, local and national political ambitions as well as geographical characteristics, which as a whole, reflect the city’s relationship to its past.

Eager to avoid the “conventional” definitions of Eastern, Western, Northern and Southern Europe, Hatherley takes the reader on his European tour through six regions: the Atlantic, the Mediterranean, the Balkans, the Baltic, and the North Sea regions, as well as Central Europe, He visits twenty-four cities, capitals and lesser-known towns alike, from which Brussels remains absent, only mentioned in the introduction as the European capital that has failed to create any kind of European identification through its own architectural image.

Although the chapters are sometimes uneven and the architectural descriptions might be perceived as abstract despite the pictures, Trans-Europe Express remains a fascinating hybrid book on contemporary Europe. In each of the cities, the reader wanders through the streets and through time alongside the author, who tries to determine what made them the way they are today. Another of the book’s interesting features is that the reader does not discover the towns via their most famous landmarks, but via the buildings and neighbourhoods that are the most significant illustrations of their political history. Aachen’s university clinic, Munich’s social housing buildings, Le Havre’s train station or Stockholm’s suburbs are probably not the first place that most people would choose to visit. Yet their relevance is revealed throughout the book, as we learn of Europe’s past, marked by the rise and fall of empires, by communism and national- socialism, and its current struggles.

Book review by Marianne Lazarovici

Owen Hatherley, Trans-Europe Express. Tours of a Lost Continent. Penguin UK, 2018, 448 pages, ISBN: 014198595X

European Book Review

THE WORLD OF YESTERDAY, MEMORIES OF A EUROPEAN Stefan Zweig

The world of yesterday, memories of a European, is a testimonial narrative written by the Austrian author Stefan Zweig. It was written in 1941, when Stefan Zweig was a refugee in Brazil: of Jewish origin, the old continent was no longer safe for him. He took advantage of his exile to produce a book that describes the disappearance of liberal and bourgeois European societies from the "belle époque" to 1939.

“My father, my grandfather, what did they see? They lived their lives united in its form. One and the same life, from beginning to end, without highs, or lows, without shocks and without perils, a life that knew only slight tensions, insensitive transitions. With equal rhythm, peaceful and nonchalant, the flow of time carried them from the cradle to the grave. They lived without changing country, without changing city, and almost always without moving house.”

In this book, Stefan Zweig tells us about the various exiles he experienced in his life and the resulting intellectual journey. He mourns a period of great stability and tranquillity. Over the years his bearings have gradually disappeared as he found himself thrown into decades of tumult and horror.

“I have witnessed reason's most appalling defeat. [...] This pestilence of pestilences, nationalism, has poisoned the flower of our European culture....”

In the course of the chapters, Stefan Zweig tells how he came to feel more European than Austrian, due to the resulting delinquency of the societies of the old continent and its exiles. "The World of Yesterday" is indeed a testimony to the Europe's shipwreck: modernity advancing too fast, denial of the elites in the face of the rise of Nazism and hatred. It is also a criticism of his peers who preferred to shut themselves away in art rather than concern themselves with politics.

The World of Yesterday is ultimately the story of the disappearance of a society, swept away by wars. It is not a history book, it does not follow the rules of the discipline, nor is it really a novel, but rather a text straddling the two genres. This testimony, which has become a classic, offers an interesting insight into European societies in the first half of the 20th century. It provokes reflection on today's society in a context of rising extremes and mistrust of the European project.

Book review by Thibault Besnier

Stefan Zweig, The World of Yesterday, Memories of a European, London, Pushkin Press, 2014, 480 pages, ISBN: 9781906548674