Search results for ""Author Josef Joffe""

In the sweep of human history, the European Union stands out as one of humankind's most ambitious endeavours. It encompasses half a billion people, twenty-seven member states, twenty-three languages, and an economy valued at over $15 trillion. Modern Europe's stunning achievements aside, its sovereign debt crisis has shaken the world's largest political and economic union to its core. Can the federal institutions and shared values of Europeans meet the challenges of debt crisis that are as much political as economic? Or, are Europe's current woes indicative of a series of deep structural faults that foreshadow the breakup and failure of the European Union? In this edition of the Munk Debates -- Canada's premier international debate series -- former EU Commissioner Lord Peter Mandelson and EU parliament co-president of the Greens/European Free Alliance Group Daniel Cohn-Bendit, German publisher-editor and author Josef Joffe, and renowned economic historian Niall Ferguson debate the future of the EU -- one of the most pressing global issues of our day. For the first time ever, this electrifying debate, which played to a sold-out audience, is now available in print, along with candid interviews with Niall Ferguson and Lord Peter Mandelson. As youth unemployment rates flare, currencies collapse, and political alliances erode, the Munk Debate on Europe tries to answer: Has the great European experiment failed?

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America-bashing predates America: French Enlightenment philosophies claimed that the colony was doomed and one critic reported that the colony’s population was "astonishingly idiotic [and] enervated". As the United States became a superpower after the Second World War, a more virulent, politically charged form of declinism emerged amid hysteria that "the Russians are coming". It was followed by the European miracle, Japan’s "Rising Sun" and now the looming Chinese behemoth. While declinism may delight the media and gloating Europeans eager to play up America’s "has-been" status, the facts do not corroborate the contentions, as Josef Joffe demonstrates in this history of American declinism. He offers a highly provocative examination of how the US, for all its failings, continues to be a force of rejuvenation today.

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Once every decade, it is "decline time" in America. In recent years, it has been the unstoppable rise of China that has spelled "finis America." What the Chinese juggernaut is today, the Soviet Union ("We shall bury you") was in the 1950s. The Vietnam decade of the 1960s was described as America's "collective suicide attempt," while in the 1970s, the United States succumbed to Jimmy Carter's famous "malaise," as the dollar dangerously plummeted. The 1980s unquestionably belonged to a resurgent Japan, the "Rising Sun," whereas in the 1990s, Europe shone forth as an "empire by example." In the naughts, it was "Asia Rising" that became the flavor of the decade. Despite a litany of prognostications, these contenders have all fallen back, one by one. While it may be catnip for the media to play up America as a has-been, Josef Joffe, a leading German commentator and Stanford University academic, compellingly shows that Declinism is not a cold-eyed diagnosis but a device in the style of the ancient prophets: "Thou shalt perish, unless..." Gloom is a prophecy that must be believed so that it will turn out wrong. Joffe repeatedly demonstrates how the "economic miracles" that propelled the rising tide of challengers flounder against their own limits. Hardly confined to Europe alone, Declinism has also been an especially nifty career builder for American politicians, among them Kennedy, Nixon, and Reagan, who all rode into the White House by hawking "the end is near." Buttressing his argument with facts, Joffe demonstrates that America's future is sanguine. In contrast to the Carter years, the economic woes of the Obama era look more like a nasty migraine. By historical standards, the U.S. defense burden today is extraordinarily low, hence sustainable over the long haul. Immigration (plus a healthy birth rate) will not only keep the nation younger than China, Japan, Europe, and Russia but will continue to bring in the world's best and brightest. Indeed, America is the "world's Ph.D. factory" both in science and engineering, while its R&D spending dwarfs the "rising rest." Its uniquely deep and wide capital market encourages innovations and continues to turn dreams into vibrant companies. Joffe argues that it is only if America "freezes up" by enshrining privilege, closing its doors, and withdrawing from the world that it will succumb to the rigor mortis that has overwhelmed previous empires. Effortlessly mixing keen historical insights with brilliant diplomatic and economic analysis, The Myth of America's Decline becomes a remarkable reflection on our nation's standing in the world and an eye-opening account that challenges the pervasive and now tired notion that America is on the decline.

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