Flashpoints ^{2nd Ed.}

George Friedman delivers a fascinating portrait of modern-day Europe, with special focus on significant political, cultural, and geographical flashpoints where the conflicts of the past are smoldering once again.

For the past five hundred years, Europe has been the nexus of global culture and power. But throughout most of that history, most European countries have also been volatile and unstable-some even ground zero for catastrophic wars. As Friedman explores the continent's history region by region, he examines the centuries-long struggles for power and territory among the empires of Spain, Britain, Germany, and Russia that have led to present-day crises: economic instability in Greece; breakaway states threatening the status quo in Spain, Belgium, and the United Kingdom; and a rising tide of migrants disrupting social order in many EU countries. Readers will gain a new understanding of the current and historical forces at work-and a new appreciation of how valuable and fragile peace can be.

1. European Exceptionalism
   
1. A European Life
2. Europe's Assault on the World
3. The Fragmentation of the European Mind
2. Thirt-One Years
   
4. Slaughter
5. Exhaustion
6. The American Origins of European Integration
7. Crisis and Division
3. Flashpoints
8. The Wars on Maastricht
9. The German Question Once More
10. Mainland and Peninsula
11. Russia and Its Borderlands
12. France, Germany, and Their Ancient Borderlands
13. Mediterranean Europe Between Islam and Germany
14. Turkey on the Edge
15. Britain
16. Conclusion

This is such rubbish that I can't even decide where to begin to describe it. It is not internally consistent, historically inaccurate and shows a major disconnect to reality.

OK, he makes a superficially point and presents it good, but he can't prove it and resorts to the "trust me, I am an authority" and gives out a load of pure, unadulterated rubbish. The only place this have any validity is in some stupid neo-con brain in the US. The rest of the world is smart enough to treat this as the excrement it really is.