Europe: The Struggle for Supremacy, 1453 to the Present

A compendium of European ideals, aspirations, as well as failures, author Brendan Simms goes to extraordinary lengths to create the thesis that once again, the future of Europe flows through Germany. German military strategy, he argues, is today characterized by abstention, not ambition, as in the past. In economic matters too, retrenchment is a workable force in Germany: how long German taxpayers will be willing to fund the financial deficits of its neighbors is one of the more tantalizing questions he raises concerning the future of Europe. He points out that in many quarters, the European Union has become derisively known as a "transfer union", one in which the debts of profligate high spending neighbors get transferred to the Bundesbank. This has happened so often, he argues, it is no longer inconceivable that Germany could, as nations vie to enter the European Union, throw up its hands and exit the Union, re-installing the deutschmark as its national currency. This would leave Germany isolated and alienated, and we know what happened the last time Germany was left to its own devices.