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The Independent
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Interesting, but ultimately too biased.,
By AmazonUser (UK) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Why Europe Will Run the 21st Century (Paperback)
I purchased this book as reading material to help me with a pro-EU essay and I have to admit that it was reasonably useful for that purpose. Its basic premise is interesting, that the EU's way of doing things is ultimately the best one, but it really doesn't progress much beyond repeating this basic argument, with occasional other positive comments on the EU thrown in for good measure. If you want to massage pro EU feelings that you already hold, or to gain an insight on a different point of view to your own, then this book may hold some interest. But if you are contemplating a choice of books on the EU my advice is that there are plenty of better books out there.
4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Lots of unsubstantiated speculation... not much more.,
By
This review is from: Why Europe Will Run the 21st Century (Paperback)
Reading the weighty list of acknowledgements at the back of this book (politicians, academics, think-tanks and an army of researchers) you could be forgiven for thinking the preceding pages contained a substantive and well-balanced critique of the European Union, backed up with a considerable body of evidence. You would be mistaken though. Leonard would have better entitled this book "Why the United States will not run the 21st century". It is a largely speculative and anecdotal commentary along the lines of writing by populist authors such as Will Hutton (who incidentally endorses the book). What it fails to do is make any note-worthy comment on the European Union, and seems instead to get side-tracked with a considerable bout of Bush-bashing, and a lengthy discussion on the so-called `Eurosphere' - wildly suggesting that the EU should and will expand to 50 or more states, encompassing Africa and the Middle East. In this book I had hoped to find some pro-European comment to help balance the mass of Euroskeptic material available, but was sorely disappointed. His attempts to address issues such as the loss of sovereignty amount to saying "well it was going to happen eventually", and with regards to the democratic deficit in the EU institutions he simply refers to a mysterious `democratic revolution' without actually bothering to say what this means. To his credit he makes some broad-reaching and interesting comments on the future of regionalism, but it lacks clout and evidence to support it, and ends up being nothing more than baseless speculation. My search for a substantive pro-European argument continues.
26 of 34 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Disappointing,
This review is from: Why Europe Will Run the 21st Century (Paperback)
"...we will see the emergence of a 'New European Century'," claims the final paragraph of the book. "Not because Europe will run the world as an empire, but because the European way of doing things will have become the world's." This ending sums up Mark Leonard's attitude pretty well, if the unambiguous title didn't do that already. Unfortunately, the book is not much more than pro-EU propaganda, and this is being said by someone who is generally more in favour of the European Union than against.The last paragraph is what annoys me the most. The book may not support old-fashioned imperialism, but Leonard's attitude is little more than a modern rehash of it, in which the economically prosperous countries of Western Europe once again have little to learn from the rest of the world, but must, through example and coercion, teach its ideology to everyone else. At one point near the end, Leonard mentions the rise of China, now often (rightly or wrongly) touted as the world's next superpower, and with the characteristic and laughable smugness that runs through the entire book suggests that a more powerful China, enlightened by European philosophies, could be used as a tool for spreading the EU's methods and ideals further. Quite a few of the ideas in the book are not wrong. Europe's ideals regarding foreign policy, shaped by the devastation of wars on its own soil, are generally wiser than the attitudes of George W Bush and the politicians in the United States who have little regard for the lives of people in other countries that are not of much economic benefit to them. There is indeed a lot that the rest of the world can learn from Europe's present and past when building a better international future. However, there are serious problems with Europe's current system that make it untenable in the long run, and this is barely acknowledged by Leonard at all. What of the fact that Britain outsources a lot of its work to India, where educated workers are paid less and can sometimes have better English language skills than the people at home? Or the fact that Europe and the rest of the world increasingly rely on China to provide cheap labour so that clothes, televisions, and any number of other things remain affordable? How is the world going to cope if these countries are fully Westernised and the population demands to have the EU's liberal lifestyle, where it is easy for many people to take more from society than they give back? What will the EU do to replace its reliance on cheap workers found elsewhere in the world? I don't claim to have the answers, but Leonard doesn't even consider the questions worth asking. In fact, almost all of the book is devoted to rebuffing criticisms of the EU, pointing out why those criticisms are flawed and how great the European Union really is. Leonard may not mean everything he says; there is a sense that sometimes he is merely trying to provoke his opponents, but the sad thing is that this book could have been so much more: a balanced and thoughtful look at the problems facing the EU, its great achievements, and how it and the rest of the world can learn from each other. Instead, the whole book is shamelessly one-sided and simplistic, and embarrassing to read in places. There are too many problems with this book to list them all, and the points in favour of it are generally few and far between. It's a good read for Europeans feeling insecure about their continent's future, who want a rose-tinted view of the next century where values familiar to them will still be prominent in the world. Or buy it for the amusing picture of Leonard on the inside cover. Otherwise, the book is well worth a miss.
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