Europe’s Decline and Fall by Richard Youngs

 Europe’s Decline and Fall by Richard Youngs


 

This is a book that I have received as a gift: once in a while, The Economist sends me an invitation to participate in a 15’-20’ survey, for which the gift is a book like this one. I am a fan of The Economist, which I have started reading about 30 years ago and never missed an issue, except for very few. Being such a loyal reader and subscriber, it is to be expected that I enjoy the books recommended, or written by present or former staff. I do not resume myself to reading The Economist every single week, but access their site to listen to and watch the rather likeable editors, discussing various issues on videos posted at www.economist.com.

Today, Babbage posted a very interesting video on eBooks…

 

Europe’s Decline and Fall presented me with familiar issues, as mentioned above, found in the issues of The Economist over the past decades. The rise of Asia and in particular China have made Obama change his defense priorities, with an emphasis on new policies, deployments there, coupled with withdrawals of troops, tanks, etc from Germany and other places.

 

I agree with the points of view expressed in the book, even if it is a bit awkward for me, as a Romanian to read about the fall of a temple, a symbol of wealth, civilization, achievement which is still standing: I live in a place which is way behind, even if included in “Europe”.

This reminds me of the joke:  the end of the world comes and our stupid-sailor president comes on TV and says: “don’t worry, we’re anyway 50 (used to be 100) years behind”…

 

In other words, it is a bit funny and distressing at the same time to read about the decline of a place which is an ideal, exactly what you want your country to be like, as soon as possible: clean, efficient, well organized, with good to excellent (TGV) public transport, etc, etc

 

Final word: This is a good book, which somehow had been read ahead by me in…The Economist

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