Synopses & Reviews
Magisterial analysis of Europe's development since the end of the Cold War.A major work of modern history and political analysis, The New-Old World punctures both domestic and American myths about continental Europe.
Surveying the post-Cold War trajectory of European power and the halting progress towards social and economic integration, Perry Anderson draws out the connections between the EU's eastward expansion, a foreign policy largely subservient to America's, and the popular rejection of the European Constitution. As a neoliberal economic project, pushed forward by a succession of centrist governments, the European Union cannot afford to allow its peoples a free choice that might dash elite schemes of a post-national democracy. Anderson explores Hayek's suggestion that protecting a market economy might require exactly this kind of inter-state structure, out of reach of popular opposition. With landmark chapters on France, Germany, Italy and Turkey, and a wide-ranging survey of current theories of the Union, The New-Old World offers an iconoclastic portrait of a continent that is now being increasingly hailed as a moral and political exemplar for the world at large.
Review
As insightful, combative and invigorating as its illustrious predecessors. Mark Mazower
Review
This is a hugely ambitious and panoramic political book, of a sort rarely attempted in our era of quick leader biographies and reheated histories of the Second World War. The Nation
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He approaches the EU with the deepest skepticism, and finds much to justify the use of his blade. Andy Beckett The Guardian
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Anderson is among the most insightful and policy-relevant analysts of modern Europe. --Andrew Moravcsik
Synopsis
A major work of modern history and political analysis, by the leading historian and social theorist. Surveying the post-Cold War trajectory of each European power, and the halting progress towards social and economic integration, Perry Anderson punctures both domestic and American myths about continental Europe. Whilst noting the relative achievement of German integration, Anderson draws out the connections between the EU"s eastward expansion, a foreign policy that is largely subservient to America"s, and the popular rejection of the European Constitution. As a largely economic project, pushed forward by a succession of neoliberal regimes, the European Union cannot afford to allow its people to choose freely: it remains 'a caricature of a democratic federation". But if the EU is largely an economic construction, can its member states nevertheless act as Venus to America"s Mars, at least putting a brake on US foreign policy? Perry Anderson"s assessment of Europe"s record, supporting American foreign policy on every major question, shows that the enlarged Union is less independent than ever before.
Synopsis
The New Old World looks at the history of the European Union, the core continental countries within it, and the issue of its further expansion into Asia. It opens with a consideration of the origins and outcomes of European integration since the Second World War, and how today’s EU has been theorized across a range of contemporary disciplines. It then moves to more detailed accounts of political and cultural developments in the three principal states of the original Common Market-France, Germany and Italy. A third section explores the interrelated histories of Cyprus and Turkey that pose a leading geopolitical challenge to the Community. The book ends by tracing ideas of European unity from the Enlightenment to the present, and their bearing on the future of the Union. The New Old World offers a critical portrait of a continent now increasingly hailed as a moral and political example to the world at large.
Synopsis
A magisterial analysis of Europe's development since the end of the Cold War.
Synopsis
One of the best political, historical and literary essayists of the age.
About the Author
Perry Anderson is the author of, among other books, Spectrum, Lineages of the Absolutist State, Passages from Antiquity to Feudalism, Considerations on Western Marxism, English Questions, The Origins of Postmodernity, and The New Old World. He teaches history at UCLA and is on the editorial board of New Left Review.