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Things I have posted recently
- 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
- Brexit and the British Constitution: Part II. The Whig spirit of the Old Constitution. 21/08/2019
Tag Archives: Greece
Germany on top, Europe in trouble. Discuss. Part 2. European Disintegration?
Douglas Webber’s is a very different book, but it is also very complimentary to Bulmer’s and Paterson’s Germany and the European Union. Both hold a question mark in the title, and both place Germany centre stage, but Webber’s subject is … Continue reading
Posted in disintegration, Europe, France and Germany, Ukraine, United Kingdom
Tagged comparative politics., Euro, European integration, France, Germany, Greece, power politics, Russia, supranationalism, the EU, UK
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Germany on top, Europe in trouble? Discuss. Part I.
A casual answer to the essay question in the title of this book review may suggest that the two statements are causal, and that the prime cause is that Germany is top dog. Both books under review do not rush … Continue reading
Posted in Europe, France and Germany
Tagged comparative politics., EU, Euro, European integration, France, Germany, globalisation, Greece, interdependence, supranationalism, UK
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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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Realpolitik and the European Union. Final Chapter: Part 2. The true challenge facing the Merkel-Macron tandem.
The UK’s certain idea of Europe. A USE maybe attainable. But the hurdles along the path towards it are innumerable, and as likely as not unknown. Not the least of these is that a USE would be at the very … Continue reading
Posted in Asia, Europe, France and Germany, Greece, Oil, the Mid East and Gulf, Russia, Ukraine, United Kingdom, World politics, business and economics
Tagged Asia, EU, Euro, Europe, France, Germany, Globalization, Greece, interdependence, monetary union, Russia, supranationalism, UK, world politics
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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 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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Europe’s slippery slopes: a book review.
There are never enough books to satisfy the reading public’s appetite for ideas about how to overcome Europe’s travails. Our three authors provide us with plenty: all focus in different ways on the two key questions of nationality, and Europe’s … Continue reading
Posted in Asia, Europe, France and Germany, India, Italy, United Kingdom, World politics, business and economics
Tagged Asia, comparative politics., democracy, EU, Euro, European integration, France, Germany, globalisation, Greece, interdependence, monetary union, supranationalism, UK, world politics
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The Greek saga: The Euro is in deep (French) trouble.
“Can the Greek government be trusted to do what they are promising, to actually implement in the coming weeks, months and years?” asked Jeroen Dijsselbloem, the Dutch finance minister who is president of the 19-member Eurogroup. If this statement is … Continue reading
Greece and the EU’s holy cow.
Since the January 2015 electoral victory of the far left Syriza party to govern Greece, speculation has been rife in the European media about a profligate left wing government in Athens intent on extracting more money from European creditors in … Continue reading
Posted in Europe, France and Germany, Italy, United Kingdom
Tagged EU, Euro, European integration, France, Germany, Greece, monetary union, Russia, UK
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The Greek bail-out and German public opinion.
The Greek debt crisis has revealed the flaws in the Euro’s construction. While it was still on the drawing board, many commentators pointed out that a federal currency required a federal political system to underpin it. We are still far … Continue reading
Writing about history, politics & economics 