After the Fall

After the Fall
Walter Laqueur

The “fall” here is the decline and fall of Europe, which Laqueur sees as pretty much inevitable (though he always hedges any bets on the future). Indeed, he sees Europe as having already fallen into political and economic irrelevance, so post mortem makes up the main part of the discussion. The key contributors given are psychological collapse (a lack of will and dynamism) and the fact that economic union was a lot easier to achieve than political union. Shadowing the argument throughout is a demographic shift, with Europe’s population aging and Muslim immigration on the rise. On the latter point Laqueur struggles to remain objective, but it’s clear he really doesn’t think much of Europe’s new immigrants and his analysis is too broad and insistent on accentuating the negative.