Europe and the End of the Age of Innocence

"Bongiovanni's message should be heeded, especially in Brussels,Berlin and Paris" - John Peet, Political Editor, The Economist Francesco Bongiovanni returns with a sequel to The Decline and the Fall of Europe, a book Guardian journalist Nils Pratley labelled 'a wake-up call for the twenty-first century'. Since 2012 Europe has been confronted with new, unexpected game-changingchallenges such as the refugee crisis and its human tsunami, the surprise ofBrexit and the explosion of 'alternative' politics. Europeans have finally come torealize that the open-societies that they have been comfortably living in are under threat andfragmenting, leaving their survival uncertain. Minorities are fallingprey to an Islamist ideology that conveys values and customs diametricallyopposed to European ones. Terrorist acts have become the 'new normal', part ofdaily life. The North-South cleavage brought aboutby the eurozone crisis is nowcompleted by a deep East-West cleavage born from the refugee crisis. Againstthis backdrop, a Germany that is not all that it seems has become Europe'sde-facto ruler, but is unfit to lead, while Trump's America cannot be counted onas it once used to be, forcing Europe to fend for itself. A beacon of stability and prosperity in the past, a naive and unprepared Europe,facing new and terrifying challenges is today more than ever torn apart,increasingly unstable and adrift.