Unhappy Union : How the euro crisis - and Europe - can be fixed /

Coauthors and Economist journalists Peet (Europe editor) and La Guardia (Brussels correspondent) here provide insights into the impact of European Union (EU) activities worldwide, especially the economic events experienced by its 28 member states. The establishment of the modern EU and adoption of the Euro, the shared currency among member states, was intended to promote democracy, free trade, and prosperity throughout the Eurozone. However, recent debt crises in countries such as Greece, Ireland, and Spain highlight that the integration of the European monetary and banking systems are complex and create risks for member states that non-EU nations do not face. There are no easy, straightforward solutions, but the authors present extensive analysis about potential directions. Verdict This work will appeal to readers who have been searching for a comprehensive account of the modern EU and its history.-Caroline Geck, Camden Street Sch. Lib., Newark, NJ (c) Copyright 2014. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Many evenhanded economics tomes are too polite to say it, so leave it to the always opinionated British papernewsmagazine, that isthe Economistto underscore the fact that the euro is a result of a big question that occupied the Allied Powers in the late 1940s: How to tame the German problem that had led to two world wars?The answer was to bind Germany to France economically, forever making it unwise for the two to go to war. Couple that with Winston Churchills dream of a United States of Europe, and you have the European Union, a decidedly unequal set of partnerships of rich and poor nations. Note correspondents Peet and La Guardia, who are old euro hands, it is tempting to think, after only 15 years of implementation, that the unified currency is a failure, in part due to the fact that it has clearly led to the ability of rich countries to amass surpluses and poor ones, deficits that further the imbalance. National currencies might have required central bankers to be more proactive, imposing such controls as high interest rates and devaluation. Interestingly, by the authors account, the chief problem would seem to be not Greece or Spain but Italy, the perpetual underperformer in the EU, which, though comparatively well off, lacks the political will to reform its economy: [T]he fear of moral hazard was acute, in part because nobody trusted Italian politicians to reform. So cultural and economic differences taken into account, is there any hope for the euro? The authors suggest ways to make it work and hold out hope for its survival, writing thateven thoughthe political momentum is towards fragmentation, not integration, nations such as Ukraine still clamor for membership.For students of geopolitics and international economics, the case studies and implications are worth the price of admission. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.