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February 25, 2012

The Emperor of Vanished Kingdoms

Raymond Zhong, Wall Street Journal


AP Photo

Here's a thought. What if the euro survives the present economic crisis but the European Union—or even the United Kingdom—doesn't?

It's the kind of question that comes to mind when you talk to Norman Davies, Britain's pre-eminent historian of Europe. From where he sits, Europe's problem is one of failed governance. "It all started, I guess, in the 1990s, with the Yugoslav wars and the inability of the Europeans to do anything basic about a war in their backyard."

And that inability, Mr. Davies says, stems from a fatal flaw in the way Europe approached the grand project of knitting its member nations into a union. "I now feel that the thing that is being proved wrong is what some people call the 'gradualist fallacy'—that . . . you drive European integration...

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Related Topics: economy

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