Written in late 2004, Ratzinger raises serious questions about the issues facing Europe amidst the new European Union and forming of a European Constitution. Some of the main issues he raises include: How did Europe originate and what are its boundaries? Who has the right to call himself European and be admitted into the new Eurpoe? What about the spiritual roots of Europe and the moral foundation she is founded on? Ratzinger sees the lack of focus on these fundamental questions in the forming of a new Europe as a very serious dilemma for the furture of Europe, and the world.

Compilation of writings proposing realistic goals for the development of Western Europe between now and 1990 - examines problems of government policy, international relations, sociology, industrial development, technology, economic growth, environment, education, etc., in the context of an enlarged EC. References and statistical tables.

Conventional wisdom says that Europe’s crisis is a financial crisis. But is this really the case? In Industrial Poverty, economist Sven R. Larson, challenges this view and suggests instead that Europe is in a state of permanent economic decline. Using Sweden in the 1990s as an example, he shows how a welfare-state crisis combined with the wrong kind of austerity policies replaces prosperity with industrial poverty. Today, Europe is going through the same transition into industrial poverty. Tomorrow, it could be the United States, unless Congress and the President take decisive action against the runaway budget deficit.

Well known for his important scholarly contributions to dogmatic theology and biblical commentary, Joseph Ratzinger has also written penetrating observations of our times. Formerly titled Europe Today and Tomorrow in a previous edition, this book includes some of his keen insights about the social and political challenges confronting modern Western societies. Writing most of these chapters just before his election as pope, Ratzinger sought to remind Europeans, who at the time were crafting a new constitution, that the civilizational project we call “the West” is a cultural achievement with a history. Jerusalem, Athens, and Rome were the three foundation stones upon which Western civilization was built, he wrote. Their invaluable contributions form the basis for the Western understanding of human dignity and human rights, which spread from Europe to the United States and beyond.