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New America will be hosting two events with Steven Hill to discuss this book and Europes evolving leadership. Join us Thursday, January 21 at 12:15 p.m. and Friday, January 22 at Noon ET.

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.

Praise for Europe's Promise

"In this timely and provocative book, Hill, known primarily as an analyst of U.S. state and local reform, argues that the "social capitalist" policies of European countries represent best practices in handling most of the challenges modern democracies face today. By contrast, the United States is often dysfunctional. When indirect fees, private out-of-pocket costs, and taxes are all included, Americans pay as much as Europeans for public services but end up with much less. Europe's health care, social welfare, environmental policies, labor rights, "smart power" projection, and multiparty parliamentary governments are consistently more efficient, more just, and less fractious than the United States' libertarian, militaristic, two-party, money-driven, separation-of-powers alternatives. Hill can be breathlessly wordy, and, like some other Europhiles, he occasionally indulges in armchair social psychology -- but the overall argument rests on solid data. It explains why in most areas, it is Europe's constitutional forms, economic regulations, and social values, not those of the United States, that are the most popular models for new democracies. The oldest one should take note." --Andrew Moravcsik, 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

"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, author and publisher of the political blog, The Washington Note

"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, 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

"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 counter-intuitive 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