'After the Fall: The End of the European Dream and the Decline of a Continent'

by Walter Laqueur

St. Martin's Press, 322 pp., $26.99

Europe is a mess. Greece, Spain, Italy and who knows who else are grappling with debt and budget crises that make ours look tame. As the European Union lurches from one jury-rigged solution to another, the euro's future as a currency is under serious question. Despite the powerhouse of Germany, the EU's overall economy is becoming less and less competitive globally, and its member states are finding it ever harder to keep the social-insurance promises made in years past.

The time would seem perfect for a clear, insightful examination of why Europe seems to have run off the rails and what, if anything can be done to right it — especially since the United States faces many of the same challenges. Would that Walter Laqueur's "After the Fall" were that book.

Laqueur, a distinguished historian of modern Europe, would seem to be perfectly suited to place the continent's current troubles in context. After all, he predicted many of them four years ago in his "The Last Days of Europe," at a time when many writers were gushing over the "European Dream" and even a new "European century."

Things haven't worked out that way, for a number of reasons: the EU's unwieldy (and only partly democratic) governance structure, the wide economic disparities between different countries, the union's inability to project and implement a common policy on anything more complex than strawberry standards. Now, most EU countries are ratcheting back the welfare-state policies that not long ago were the envy of overworked, underpaid Americans, hoping to keep the euro viable and the EU together.

But Laqueur isn't much interested in all that. Instead, he argues that Europe's fundamental problems are spiritual and demographic, not political or economic — "a crisis of lack of will, inertia, tiredness, and self-doubt." Europe, he writes, is a continent that has lost confidence in itself, and as a result is unable or unwilling to act forcefully to further its interests or defend its values.

After the devastation of World War II, Laqueur writes, "above all, there was the desire to no longer play an important part in world politics. ... Europeans, however, did not fully realize that opting out of world politics did not offer protection against the consequences of world politics."

Laqueur dwells much on how Europe is aging and soon will start shrinking — a U.N. projection concludes that by 2050 the EU will have 60 million fewer inhabitants than it does today — and on its growing Muslim population, much of which he describes as underemployed, undereducated and uninterested in integrating into the host culture. While he raises legitimate questions about how the Muslim immigrants will change European societies — there may already be "more practicing Muslims in Britain than churchgoing members of the Church of England" — too often he sounds like a cranky old man complaining about all those young people listening to hip-hop and consuming junk culture.

"After the Fall" is a rambling book, less a coherent argument than an assemblage of current events, history, keen insights, crotchety opinions and musings on where to find the best Turkish food in Berlin. Laqueur has an unfortunate tendency to repeat himself; parts of the book read like transcribed lecture notes.

For someone who hasn't been paying attention, "After the Fall" is a convenient compilation of all the continent's ills, narrated by a learned, world-weary and deeply pessimistic companion. But those hoping to learn why the Old World seems to have lost its mojo likely will be disappointed.

Drew DeSilver is a business reporter for The Seattle Times.