Is "Old Europe" Doomed? (Cato Unbound Book 22006)

Western Europe—"Old Europe," as Donald Rumsfeld likes to call it—seems to have seen better days. After years of high unemployment, slow economic growth, and a summer of riots in the suburbs of Paris and beyond, perhaps it is time to ask whether Western European trends in demography, immigration, and economic and social policy augur ill for the fate of the Continent. Do the French and German social models continue to be worthy of emulation? Or does the state of Old Europe stand as a living warning to the post-communist New European nations? Will Europe stand up for the freedom of Danish artists to depict whomever they like, however they like. Or . . . is Old Europe doomed?

Essayist and social critic Theodore Dalrymple (also known as "the Edmund Burke of our age" or "the Orwell of our time," depending on who you ask) will kick off the discussion with an elegant essay examining the prospects of Old Europe. Charles Kupchan, professor of international relations at Georgetown; Timothy B. Smith, Queens University historian and author of France in Crisis; and Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist and author Anne Applebaum will put Dalrymple's thoughts to the test in their comment essays, while offering their own unique insights into the fate of the Continent.