Excerpt:
When the West found itself lacking for serious rivals after the collapse of the Soviet Union, an era of optimism dawned on both sides of the Atlantic. In the U.S., political scientist Francis Fukuyama dreamed about the "end of history," an inexorable convergence toward liberal democracy. Meanwhile, in Europe, a few philosophers and Eurocrats entertained a similar dream of their own: the comforting idea that their continent was a natural blueprint for the rest of humanity. Going even further than Mr. Fukuyama, they predicted that the world wouldn't just converge on some generic form of liberal democracy—but rather on its European incarnation, complete with an aversion to military force, a generous welfare state and the post-national form of sovereignty embodied by the European Union.
But as Walter Laqueur argues in "After the Fall: The End of the European Dream and the Decline of a Continent," this dream was delusional from the start. Mr. Laqueur's case seems easy to make in these times. We have all become well-acquainted with Europe's woes, from the sovereign-debt crisis to the danger that disagreements about how to handle it might tear the political institutions of the EU apart.
In this loosely linked series of thematic essays on Europe's troubles, Mr. Laqueur paints an even starker portrait. For him, the current crisis is but the most visible manifestation of a deeper malaise. Economically, he argues, many European countries had been faring badly even before 2008, with provisions for health care and pensions having become unsustainable. Militarily, Europe has long been virtually irrelevant on the global stage. And politically, far-right insurgents such as Geert Wilders in the Netherlands and Pia Kjaersgaard in Denmark had uprooted traditional party structures, even as the idea of a continent-wide super-state—which had once enjoyed the enthusiastic support of European elites—has grown deeply unpopular.