Europe's Promise

Steven Hill is Director of the Political Reform Program for the New America Foundation and author of 10 Steps to Repair American Democracy and other books on politics. His articles have appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Wall Street Journal, Salon.com, TheNation, International Herald Tribune, The Guardian, Prospect, and many other publications and websites.

"Timely and provocative. Europe's Promise explains why in most areas, it is Europe's constitutional forms, economic regulations, and social values, not those of the United States, that are the most popular models for new democracies. The oldest one should take note." -- Andrew Moravcsik Foreign Affairs "Hill is a lucid and engaging writer. He makes you sit up and think. He is surely right in saying that Europe's prosperous, peaceful and democratic social market economy looks attractive when contrasted with the unbalanced, excessively deregulated US model or with China's politically repressive capitalism." -- Tony Barber Financial Times "Europe's Promise" marshals an impressive army of facts and comparative statistics to show that the United States is behind Europe in nearly every socio-economic category that can be measured and that neither America's trickle-down, Wall Street-driven capitalism nor China's state capitalism hold the keys to the future." -- Bernd Debusmann Reuters News Agency "An engrossing book... Hill has a gift for capturing cogent themes in a single image... Steven Hill examines the evolving trajectory since World War II of Europe's 'fulcrum institutions' on which their societies pivot, and discovers rich contrast to the ruinous feuding of Republicans and Democrats here." -- Anne Grant Providence Journal "Breezily written and well-documented ... To anyone wondering whether by 2099 the current era will be viewed as a second 'American Century,' Hill's warnings are worth considering. If the competitive advantages he ably enumerates continue to evolve in Europe's favor, the claim to the century may well cross the Atlantic." -- Cecilio Morales America: The National Catholic Weekly "Europe's promise is in many ways a provocative and exuberant book." -- Teija Tiilikainen Insight Turkey "A comprehensive analysis of Europe aimed at engaging the American public in a dialogue about the transformative achievements of the old continent. A very-well written discussion, substantiated by a wealth of reference material and dotted with personal anecdotes." -- A. E. Wohlers Choice What to make of this dazzling Opus? The analysis offers some fresh perspective on the European and American systems...The book fills gaps in information about Europe and at the same time act as a manifesto for a fundamentally different America. Internationale Politik "An important new book from Berkeley's worthy UC Press." -- Bill Mann Inside Bay Area / Oakland Tribune "There are vital lessons in Europe's Promise from which America could benefit... Hill is able to explain how and why Europe works and therefore, may galvanize Americans to look in the mirror and make some changes." -- Joseph David Rollwagen & Justin McCauley Vienna Review Of Books

• Preface Introduction: A Quiet Revolution Part One. Social Capitalist Europe 1. The Rise of the European Way 2. The Capitalist Engine That Huffed and Puffed ... 3. Europe's Secret Advantage: Economic Democracy 4. Family Values, European Style 5. The Myth of the Overtaxed European and Other Modern Fables 6. The Economic Crash of 2008-9: Wall Street Capitalism vs. Social Capitalism Part Two. Healthy Europe 7. The European Way of Health 8. La Sante d'abord: The Formal Health Care System Part Three. Sustainable Europe 9. Windmills, Tides, and Solar Besides: The European Way of Energy 10. Revolution on Wheels: The European Way of Transportation Part Four. Global Europe 11. The Reluctant Superpower: Transatlantic Rupture and the Post-9/11 World 12. The European Way of Foreign Policy, Put to the Test Part Five. Pluralist Europe 13. The Legacy of Luther and Cromwell: Political Democracy in Europe 14. Consensus Building through Dynamic Democracy Part Six. The Concept of "Europe" 15. Sticky Glue, Social Contracts, and Fulcrum Institutions Part Seven. Will Europe Survive? 16. The Challenges of Immigration and Integration 17. A European Civil Rights Movement Arises-Sort Of 18. The Dilemma of Population Decline: "Where are all the children?" Conclusion: The Make or Break Century Notes Selected Bibliography Acknowledgments Index