Europe Beyond Your Means

Not your typical travel guide, Europe Beyond Your Means: The Paris Edition presents satirical advice for the discerning traveler who shuns the idea of prepackaged, budget-focused travel tips and instead craves permission to break from the tourist norm, discard the fanny pack, and embrace social commentary. Authors Conrad Lucas and William Norgard have created an original and amusing travel guide that lampoons other traditional, mainstream travel guides while sharing travel suggestions, witty observations, and relevant anecdotes about the endearing quirks of the French, the Parisian culture, and how to have fun in one of the worlds most celebrated cities. Youll learn how to find a great place to stay, prepare for inconveniences, dress for cultural success, avoid etiquette blunders, and develop a Parisian disposition. For those ready to abandon the preconceived notions and traditional methods of travel and seek out Paris in a unique way, Europe Beyond Your Means is the perfect companion for knowledgeable travelers who also want to laugh a little along the way.

"Europe Beyond Your Means" is a hilarious and satirical travel guide focused on understanding Parisian culture and enhancing the overall experience of visiting one of the world's most celebrated cities. Complete with travel suggestions, witty observations and relevant narratives of a nature that you won't find in typical travel literature, this book is guaranteed to augment any visit to Paris. By pointing out the endearing quirks of the French and the throngs of tourists who visit each year, "Europe Beyond Your Means" takes readers through the essential vacation steps of packing, arrival, necessary activities, cultural realizations and the difficult acceptance of having to eventually return home. This book is written for those who seek the most out of travel by trying to grasp the local culture and do not always feel accounted for by guides propagating the widely popular "ten-dollar-a-day" approach. In short, "Europe Beyond Your Means" is a must have companion piece for any erudite traveler to Paris who wants to laugh a little along the way.

This book argues that security and defense have never been true priorities in the European Union, and have constantly been marginalized by the elites since the Soviet Union collapsed and the Warsaw Pact disintegrated. Despite the official rhetoric, only a few tangible results can be presented concerning the operational readiness of European forces, and the EU’s inability to act was proven during the crises in the Balkans, NATO has experienced similar problems, as the majority of its members are EU countries. Both organizations have declared their resolve concerning the security and defense of their nations and territories, but, unfortunately, little has been done to lend these statements credence. In this context, the book analyzes several aspects of EU security and defense, including: the EU – NATO relationship, common defense policy and strategy, common capability building, common understanding of strategic changes, common operational planning and centrally synchronized exercises based on operational planning, etc. The member states have helped to make EU/NATO effective organizations, but unfortunately their individual interests and priorities constitute real challenges. This aspect should be discussed and addressed by political and military elites, scholars, analysts, students and the general public alike.

Three times in the few years since the global financial crisis erupted, the euro has come close to extinction, endangering both the world economy and history's most ambitious project in shared sovereignty. Yet each time, the case for a common currency proved to be more compelling than its weaknesses, and the euro survived. Saving Europe reveals how the nexus of international economics and national politics pushed monetary union to the brink of a breakup, how that disastrous development was avoided, and why the long-term viability of a common currency challenges politics as we know it. Carlo Bastasin reveals and analyzes what has been happening behind the scenes in European negotiations since the financial crisis began with the collapse of major financial institutions in 2008. He argues that the crisis in the euro zone actually has a political origin, having emerged from the self-interested abuses of national politics. Moreover, the crisis is reinforced even now by the obstinate defense of national prerogatives in politics and finance as well as by the lack of commitment for shared or supranational sovereignty. While the prevalent view is that monetary union was a flawed project from the start and is in need of amending, Bastasin shows that the failures have to do almost entirely with national opportunism—not only in Greece but in most countries, including Germany—and concludes that the crisis will lead to Europe's political union. Bastasin's work is an engrossing historical chronicle, interweaving moments of high drama with individual personalities on the world stage. German ChancellorAngela Merkel, French President Nicolas Sarkozy, and national and European central bankers, among others, play key roles. Saving Europe is also a rigorous attempt to make larger sense of what has happened in the euro zone and what might happen next. Given the central importance of Europe within the fragile world economy as well as growing speculation

Today, the European Union is facing a crisis as serious as anything it has experienced since its origins more than half a century ago. What makes this so serious is that it is not a single crisis but rather multiple crises – the euro crisis, the migration/refugee crisis, Brexit, etc. – that overlap and reinforce one another, creating a cumulative array of challenges that threatens the very survival of the EU. For the first time in its history, there is a real risk that the EU could break up. This volume brings together sociologists, economists and political scientists from around Europe to shed light on how the EU got into this predicament. It argues that the multiple crises that have plagued the European Union in the last decade stem to a large extent from flaws in its construction and that these flaws are consequences of the political processes that led to the formation of the EU – in other words, the decisions that made possible the development of the EU created the conditions for the multiple crises it experiences today. This timely and wide-ranging book on one of the most important issues of our time will be of great interest to students and scholars in the social sciences, to politicians and policy-makers and to anyone concerned with Europe and its future.

This volume takes a broad perspective on the recent debate on the role of German ordoliberalism in shaping European economic policy before and after the eurozone crisis. It shows how ordoliberal scholars explain the institutional origins of the eurozone crisis, and presents creative policy proposals for the future of the European economy. Ordoliberal discourse both attempts to offer political solutions to socioeconomic challenges, and to find an ideal market order that fosters individual freedom and social cohesion. This tension between realpolitik and economic utopia reflects the wider debate on how far economic theory shapes, and is shaped by, historical contingencies and institutions. The volume will be of interest to policymakers as well as research scholars, and graduate students from various disciplines ranging from economics to political science, history, and philosophy.