In this timely new book, a distinguished intellectual historian offers us cogent and persuasive responses to these urgent topical questions: What are the prospects for the European Union? If they are not wholly rosy, why is that? Which nations should "belong" to Europe and when? And, in any event, how much does it matter whether a united Europe does or does not come about, on whatever terms?

Tony Judt - European by extraction, British by nationality, American by residence - is especially well qualified to examine these thorny issues. At once skeptical of large claims yet enthusiastically "European," he argues that there are reasonable, realistic, and practical modes by which we can deal with the political, cultural, and economic factors involved.

We need not return to the Europe of the past, but we also need not settle for a super-national, quasi-sovereign European Union that obliterates national differences.