A quiet revolution has been occurring in post-World War II Europe. A world power has emerged across the Atlantic that is recrafting the rules for how a modern society should provide economic security, environmental sustainability, and global stability. In Europe's Promise, Steven Hill explains Europe's bold new vision. For a decade Hill traveled widely to understand this uniquely European way of life. He shatters myths and shows how Europe's leadership manifests in five major areas: economic strength, with Europe now the world's wealthiest trading bloc, nearly as large as the U.S. and China combined; the best health care and other workfare supports for families and individuals; widespread use of renewable energy technologies and conservation; the world's most advanced democracies; and regional networks of trade, foreign aid, and investment that link one-third of the world to the European Union. Europe's Promise masterfully conveys how Europe has taken the lead in this make-or-break century challenged by a worldwide economic crisis and global warming.

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 Santé 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

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.

“A spirited new tour guide to the Europe beyond the tourist hotspots. . . .

Europe, Hill helps us understand, has much more to offer than history and vistas. Europe has a model, an approach to modernity that offers, by every measure that matters, the finest quality of life in the world.”—Too Much

“There are books on international politics which should not be rectangular, with a cover made of cardboard and many, many pages of paper, but they should look like cartridges for an assault rifle: sharp pointed projectiles with steel jackets and a heavy charge of powder in the case. "Europe's Promise" by Steven Hill, program director at the Washington-based New America Foundation, is one such book. Explosive power, wherever you look.”—Internationale Politik

“Breezily written and well-documented . . . Hill ably demolishes a series of common myths concerning differences between Europe and the United States . . . 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.”—America

“An important new book from Berkeley's worthy UC Press.”—Inside Bay Area / Oakland Tribune

“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.”—Providence Journal

“Steven 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." —Financial Times

“Hill’s thesis is that Western Europe treats its people better in many ways than the United States does its people, and not just in social insurance and services. Read, wonder and galvanize!”—In the Public Interest

“Europe's Promise is a timely and provocative book . . . the "social capitalist" policies of European countries represent best practices in handling most of the challenges modern democracies face today.”—Foreign Affairs

"Steven Hill ends the transatlantic debate over which economic and political system is superior: Europe wins. While America and China fight for oil and minerals, Europe already achieves more with less. Indeed, the path to the American Dream is the European Way."—Parag Khanna, author of The Second World: Empires and Influence in the New Global Order

"Like a reverse Alexis de Tocqueville, Steven Hill dauntlessly explores a society largely unknown to his compatriots back home. Sweeping away the ideological posturing, he shows us exactly how the modern European Way works and the promise it holds for an America which has slipped to become, in terms of social, economic and energy policy, the Old World."—Hendrik Hertzberg, senior editor, The New Yorker, author of Obamanos!: The Birth of a New Political Era

"Europe's Promise should startle, inform, and galvanize Americans in raising the ante in favor of a political economy where people matter first."—Ralph Nader

“As Steven Hill compellingly argues in his excellent Europe's Promise: Why the European Way Is the Best Hope in an Insecure Age, Europe has become a dynamic, transformational force in the world and stands as a clear model of success on so many fronts that we must push reset in our assessment of Europe's course. Americans today should learn a bit about how Europe has quietly and incrementally added to its size and global weight and maintained an innovative approach to broad public challenges like renewable energy, capital punishment, social welfare, and even corporate dynamism.”—Steve Clemons, director of the American Strategy Program at the New America Foundation, author of the political blog, The Washington Note

"Europe's Promise is a provocative and illuminating book that should lead Americans to think hard about our own assumptions and priorities. By closely examining Europe's economic and political practices, Hill reveals a new Europe that has become the world's leader during this century challenged by global economic crisis, climate crisis, and new geopolitical tensions. In these times of hope and fear, read this captivating book to discover new and creative models for building a better future.”—Katrina vanden Heuvel, editor and publisher of The Nation

“Hill's book is an elegant and counterintuitive manifesto for a new politics of interdependence that could take the world through the turmoil of the economic and global warming crises.”—Mark Leonard, Executive Director, European Council on Foreign Relations

"What can the United States learn from Europe? If you believe what's said in Washington, the answer is 'not much'. If you read Steven Hill's intelligent, broad-ranging, and deeply researched book, you'll find the correct answer is 'a great deal'—and now is the time to learn it."—Jacob S. Hacker, author of The Great Risk Shift: The New Economic Security and the Decline of the American Dream

September 09, 2010, pre-program wine reception at 5:30 pm with the tal - Commonwealth Club, San Francisco, CA

Visit the Europe's Promise website

Visit Steven Hill's website