archive

Once and future Europe

Manuela Consito (Turin): The Organisation of Social Services in the European Welfare Market. Damjan Kukovec (Harvard): Myths of Social Europe. Can the eurozone be saved? Further European financial and political integration would be incredibly difficult to achieve, but it may be the only way to make the EU viable in the long run. An excerpt from The End of the West: The Once and Future Europe by David Marquand. From FT, a review essay on Italy (and more). After Silvio Berlusconi, Nichi Vendola: Can an openly left-wing, openly gay politician from the South revive an Italy in deep malaise? Strange Geographies: Here are some quick facts about the Netherlands. Atlas Obscura visits Skellig Michael, a perfectly preserved ancient monastery in an impossibly dramatic location on a rocky island in the Atlantic, and Las Medulas, a devastated landscape used for hundreds of years by the Romans as their primary mining site. Javier Marias on Barcelona, the most conceited of cities. Valencia is burning: Each spring, Spanish artists construct masterpieces — and then set them ablaze at the party of the year. Sex-abuse scandals involving priests have shaken Ireland but is that enough to break the grip of the Catholic Church? There is little sign of an artistic response to Ireland's crash. A review of Belgium and the Monarchy by Herman Van Goethem. Finland's underground city: Helsinki is fighting congestion by building down instead of out. Germany's bomb problem: Outside Berlin, a building boom hits a snag — unexploded ordnance. Joe Queenan says the French are now Monsieur Nice Guy. The murderer of the Princess of Cleves: Language is one area of culture that Nicolas Sarkozy can't dominate, so he mangles it with a calculated barbarity.