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Things I have posted recently
- The Year of Covid: Political religion and the Cultural Wars. Part 2.6. The Utilitarians: the birth of economics as a science. 18/04/2023
- The Year of Covid 19: Political Religion and the Culture Wars. Part 2.5. The Utilitarians I: Elie Halévy and the Philosophical Radicals 1750-1867. 12/02/2023
- The Year of Covid 19: Political Religion and the Culture Wars. Part 2.4. The EU’s legacy: 1789-1914: Science, Nature, Necessity. 29/03/2022
- The year of Covid 19: Political Religion and the Culture Wars. Part 2.3: The EU’s legacy, 1492-1789: Europe enters into the Devil’s Anus. 03/02/2022
- The Year of Covid 19: Political Religion and the Culture Wars: Part 2.2: The EU’s Legacy from the Middle Ages. 30/06/2021
- The Year of Covid 19: Political religion and the culture wars. Part 2. 1. Europe’s legacy: the first fifteen hundred years to AD 410. 26/02/2021
- The year of Covid-19: political religion and the culture wars.Part 1. 16/12/2020
- The UK Internal Market Bill: Supranational v. International law 14/09/2020
- China in the World: Chapter 3 Sino-US relations – a stable instability. 11/07/2020
- China in the World: Chapter 2 China becomes the prime global manufacturing and trading platform. 27/06/2020
- China in the World: Chapter 1. From backwater to world power. 16/05/2020
- China, coronavirus and the politics of paranoia 25/04/2020
- Brexit and the British Constitution: Part V. Modernisation or Vandalism? 09/04/2020
- Brexit and the British Constitution: Part IV. The pre-1945 Roots of British Supranationalism. 10/01/2020
- Brexit and the British Constitution: Part III. Efficiency, Parliamentary Sovereignty, Bureaucracy. 02/12/2019
- The Supreme Court’s judgement on Prime Minister Johnson’s decision to prorogue parliament: Part IV. New law or constitutional aberration? 06/11/2019
- The Supreme Court’s judgement on Prime Minister Johnson’s decision to prorogue Parliament: Part III. Assessment. 06/11/2019
- The Supreme Court’s judgement on Prime Minister Johnson’s decision to prorogue Parliament: Part II. The Arguments for and against. 06/11/2019
- The Supreme Court judgement on Prime Minister Johnson’s decision to prorogue Parliament: Part I: Definitions and timeline. 06/11/2019
- Apocalypse and Guilt: Why Savonarola and Greta differ. 01/10/2019
Category Archives: Italy
Is it Trump or the EU that is swapping big ideas for bad ideas?
Philip Stevens writes in the FT about“How the world swapped a big idea for a bad idea”. The big idea was “the revolutionary thought that the selfish interests of rich and rising states could be accommodated if everyone played by … Continue reading
Posted in Asia, Europe, France and Germany, Greece, Italy, Russia, Spain, The United States, Ukraine, Uncategorized, United Kingdom, World politics, business and economics
Tagged Asia, Brexit, democracy, EU, France, Germany, globalisation, Post-modernism and the international order, Robert Cooper, United States, world politics
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America and the world: Part I.
The key words in this cluster of books, focusing on the US, are emerging , retreat, closing and anger. Pankaj Mishra, in Age of Anger: A History of the Present, says that the paranoid hatreds of the present world have … Continue reading
Posted in Asia, China, Europe, France and Germany, India, Italy, Oil, the Mid East and Gulf, Russia, The United States, United Kingdom, World politics, business and economics
Tagged Asia, Brexit, China, democracy, EU, European integration, France, Germany, globalisation, India, interdependence, liberalism, marxist-leninism, nationalism, pos tmodernism, Russia, supranationalism, technology, UK, United States, world politics
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Berlin Rules: Why, What, How, and is that so?
The three books under review deal with Europe, but their focus is Germany. Paul Lever, former British ambassador to Germany, is the author of Europe and the Germany Way: Berlin Rules, I.B.Taurus, 2017. Yanis Varoufakis, former Greek Finance Minister, authors Adults … Continue reading
Posted in Europe, France and Germany, Greece, Italy, Spain, United Kingdom, World politics, business and economics, World war
Tagged Brexit, Christianity, EU, Euro, Europe, European integration, France, Germany, Greece, Islam in Europe, nationalism, supranationalism, The politics of guilt, UK
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Brexit: A Certain Idea of Europe.
The result of the June 23, 2016 referendum as to whether the United Kingdom(UK) should remain in or leave the EU seems final enough. On a 72% voter turnout, 52% voted for Leave and 48% for Remain. Yet the vote … Continue reading
Realpolitik and the European Union. Final Chapter: Part I. The true challenge facing the Merkel-Macron tandem.
Realpolitik- politics based on practical and material factors rather than on theoretical or ethical objectives-is flourishing in Europe. In fact, it never disappeared, but became absorbed within Europe’s society of states, dispersed and played out across and within the many international … Continue reading
Posted in Europe, France and Germany, Greece, Italy, Oil, the Mid East and Gulf, Russia, Ukraine, United Kingdom
Tagged Asia, EU, Euro, European integration, France, Germany, Globalization, Greece, interdependence, supranationalism, UK, world politics
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Realpolitik and the European Union. Chapter 9. More Europe, less UK.
More Model Deutschland for Europe. What concerned Kohl most was the crisis in western Europe, related to the Euro-the kernel of his strategic deal with Mitterrand at Maastricht. German policy under Merkel had become a version of the famous quotation … Continue reading
Posted in Europe, France and Germany, Greece, Italy, Uncategorized, United Kingdom, World politics, business and economics
Tagged EU, Euro, European integration, France, Germany, UK
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Realpolitik and the European Union. Chapter 8. Germany learns to say Nein.
Germany learns to say Nein. The salient feature of the events of the first decade of the new millenium was Germany’s assertion of its position as the pivotal power in Europe. The novelty lies not in the fact of German … Continue reading
Posted in Europe, France and Germany, Greece, Italy, Russia, Ukraine, United Kingdom, World politics, business and economics
Tagged EU, Euro, European integration, France, Germany, Greece, Russia, UK, world politics
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Realpolitik and the European Union: Chapter 7. Maastricht’s Unfinished Business.
Maastricht’s unfinished business. The Maastricht Treaty marked the point when the project began to become German, rather than French, Maastricht was essentially a French strategy to corale Germany, to bind it into a European home. Germany played along for a … Continue reading
Realpolitik and the European Union. Chapter Six. Germany between Province and Primacy.
Germany between province and primacy. Germany entered the Euro on an overvalued exchange rate; with a sclerotic labour market, high unemployment, a loss of international competitiveness, and burdened by heavy costs related to German unification. Between 1990 and 2003, the … Continue reading
Posted in Europe, France and Germany, Italy, United Kingdom, World politics, business and economics
Tagged China, EU, Euro, European integration, Germany, globalisation, UK
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Realpolitik and the European Union. Chapter 5: France’s voyage from state to market
France’s voyage from state to market. As with Germany, the years prior to 1945 cast a long shadow over post-war France. The defeat of 1940 was blamed by both Vichy and the Resistance on the failings of a liberal economy. … Continue reading
Writing about history, politics & economics 