Flashpoints
the emerging crisis in Europe
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4.3 • 7 Ratings
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- $16.99
Publisher Description
Europe is ready to explode. Where will the explosion take place and what will the damage be?
This major new book from the bestselling author and geopolitical forecaster George Friedman presents a bold and provocative thesis about the likeliest locations for the coming eruptions.
George Friedman forecasted coming global trends in The Next 100 Years and The Next Decade. Now, in Flashpoints, he zooms in on Europe and examines the dry tinder of the region: culture. Walking the faultlines that have existed here for centuries, Friedman inspects all the dormant social and political fissures still smouldering just beneath the continent’s surface, and identifies those likely to erupt first.
The book begins with a fascinating history of the events leading up to the horrific wars that nearly tore apart Western civilisation, and shows how modern efforts to overcome Europe’s geopolitical tensions — including the formation of the European Union — have largely failed. Homing in on half a dozen pivotal locations, George Friedman gauges what the future holds, both in terms of conflict and also opportunity. Flashpoints details how events in Europe will affect the rest of the world — from USA to Russia, from China to Latin America — and reveals a new yet familiar political landscape in what is at once a gripping history lesson and a terrifying forecast of the potential devastation ahead.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this insightful examination of contemporary Europe, political scientist Friedman (Next Decade) challenges the view that the European Union and its neighbors have transcended the threat of violent conflict among nations. As background, Friedman explores the darker implications of the individualism, intellectual inquiry, and innovation that led to Europe's greatness, showing how the culture that produced the Enlightenment descended into barbarity in the 31 years from the beginning of WWI to the end of WWII. He recounts how Europe was shattered during that time, slowly reintegrated during the Cold War, and triumphantly unified by the European Union's formation in 1991, just as the Soviet empire disintegrated. The book depicts the German-dominated EU and Eurozone as a tense, fragile construct, particularly after the 2008 financial crisis which broke the promise of prosperity that had drawn nations to join in the first place. Friedman identifies sources of instability in the numerous "borderlands" of Europe, most strikingly between Russia and a "barely functional" NATO. By dispassionately anatomizing the fears, aspirations, and interests of the key players, particularly a resurgent and resentful Russia, Friedman vividly describes a region where memories are long, perceived vulnerabilities are everywhere, and major threats have emerged rapidly and unexpectedly many times before.
