The Main Problem With American Power Is

As One Looks Back, One Sees That The Fall Of The Berlin Wall Opened The Door To Three Developments - The Eurozone, Which Was Crafted Around German Unification, The Free Movement Of Peoples Within Europe, Particularly People From The New Democracies Of Eastern Europe, And, More Broadly, It Opened The Door To Globalization.

The First Job Of The Historian And Of The Journalist Is To Find Facts. Not The Only Job, Perhaps Not The Most Important, But The First. Facts Are The Cobblestones From Which We Build Roads Of Analysis, Mosaic Tiles That We Fit Together To Compose Pictures Of Past And Present. There Will Be Disagreement About Where The Road Leads And What Reality Or Truth Is Revealed By The Mosaic Picture. The Facts Themselves Must Be Checked Against All The Available Evidence. But Some Are Round And Hard--and The Most Powerful Leaders In The World Can Trip Over Them. So Can Writers, Dissidents And Saints.

People Feel That European Institutions Are Remote And Bureaucratic, Run By Shady Cosmopolitan Elites. Britain Is Not Absolutely Exceptional Because If You Look At The Opinion Polls, Those Sentiments Are Now Quite Widespread Also In Continental Europe.

If You Had Said To Anyone In 1945, At The End Of The Second World War With The Continent It Ruins, That You Could Have A European Union Of 28 Member States Stretching From Portugal In The West To Estonia In The East, All Of Them More-or-less Liberal Democracies - They Wouldn't Have Believed You.

Canadians Tend To Be A Bit More Religious Than Most Europeans - Though Not More Than The Poles Or Ukrainians. Most Important, Their Attitude To Immigration And Ethnic Minorities Is More Positive Than That Of Most Europeans.