The End of Europe: Dictators, Demagogues, and the Coming Dark Age

286 Pages·2017·4.42 MB·English

by  James Kirchick

the end of eu rope
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james kirchick
The End of
Eu rope
dictators, demagogues,
and the coming dark age
new haven & london
Published with assistance from the foundation established in memory
of Amasa Stone Mather of the Class of 1907, Yale College,
and from the Kingsley Trust Association Publication Fund established
by the Scroll and Key Society of Yale College.
Copyright © 2017 by James Kirchick.
All rights reserved.
This book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, including
illustrations, in any form (beyond that copying permitted by Sections 107
and 108 of the U.S. Copyright Law and except by reviewers for the public
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Library of Congress Control Number: 2016957565
ISBN 978-0-300-21831-2 (hardcover : alk. paper)
A cata logue rec ord for this book is available from the British Library.
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(Permanence of Paper).
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
For Josef
The war is over, beware of the peace!
Bertolt Brecht, The Caucasian Chalk Circle, 1948
CONTENTS
Acknowl edgments ix
Map xi
Introduction: The Eu ro pean Nightmare 1
1 Rus sia: On Eu rope’s Edge 11
2 Hungary: Democracy without Demo crats 40
3 Germany: The Return of Rapallo? 71
4 The Eu ro pean Union: Trou ble in Paradise 109
5 France without Jews 135
6 Brexit: From Great Britain to Little Engl and 153
7 Greece: From Polis to Populists 180
8 Ukraine: The New West Berlin 203
Conclusion: The Eu ro pean Dream 224
Notes 231
Index 253
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ACKNOWL­EDGMENTS
Since i began reporting around eu rope and the former Soviet Union in
2010, I have come into contact with hundreds of people from all walks
of life. From presidents and foreign ministers to economists, military of-
ficers, artists, and fellow journalists, each has helped shape my under-
standing of the continent and its manifold challenges in his or her own
unique way. A full list of the individuals who influenced the writing of
this book would be impossible to compile, but I mention the most signifi-
cant ones h ere.
Jeff Gedmin and Jim Denton convened the Transatlantic Renewal Project
in the summer of 2014, at a time when the world was still reeling from the
annexation of Crimea and the fate of the international liberal order was be-
ginning to fall into serious doubt. They w ere generous enough to include
me as one of its regular participants. During a series of seminars in Eu ro-
pean capitals, I was able to develop the ideas for this book in diverse settings
where the crises discussed herein were playing out in real time. I owe a par-
tic u lar debt to Jeff, who had earlier taken a chance on a 26- year- old Ameri-
can po liti cal journalist with little overseas experience by offering him a job
at Radio Free Eu rope/Radio Liberty, a rare trea sure of an institution whose
top- notch journalists I feel enormously lucky to have worked alongside.
Paul Berman has been one of my intellectual heroes since I began read-
ing his magisterial essays in The New Republic as an undergraduate at
Yale, and I am grateful that he took the time to read the manuscript and
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