Customer Reviews

The Dream of Rome

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Anyone observer of the European Union will almost surely wonder whether the 25-nation bloc is every really going to get it together. It's tempting to think the region just has too many languages, cultures, histories, and regional priorities to be able to ever make the leap from a trading bloc or customs zone to a real community -- notwithstanding the common currency. There are a thousand historical precedents to believe it will never work and just one to prove it can: Rome.

A thorough comparison of Rome at its height with the beleaguered EU is the centerpiece of The Dream of Rome, from author and British Member of Parliament Boris Johnson. To Mr. Johnson, there is an admiration for Rome's long-lasting pax Romana in the continent's DNA. Ambitious leaders from Charlemagne to Mussolini tapped into it and even since then symbolism abounds. Witness that the 1950s treaty that created the six-member European Coal and Steel Pact that became the EU and the 2004s signing of the European Constitution (since abandoned), were both signed in Rome with the same pomp and circumstance and one might imagine for a returning victorious Roman legion and the coronation of a new Emperor.

There's no doubt that the Romans succeeded where the EU has so far failed. Mr. Johnson argues that is because the former had a genius for assimilating of new cultures --anyone could become a Roman citizen as long as they conformed to the Roman ways -- while European today time after time chooses to ignore minority groups until there is no alternative.

Witness the riots in Paris in 2005, the barriers to Northern African immigration set up in Sicily and Greece, protectionist economic barriers going up all over the continent (even against goods from other members states), and restrictions on the flow of labor. Romans' assimilation included learning Latin, the common language, and the same educational values. The EU, on the other hand, seems bent on preserving even regional dialects spoken by a few thousand people and cultural and educational differences between countries, regions, and cities, are celebrated rather than looked on as a potential source of trouble.

The question is: is this good or bad?

Personally, I would never advocate the EU choose a more "Roman" path in its politics. For good or for bad -- and I think it's for good -- put a Portuguese, a Dane, and a Pole in a room and they'll have little to talk about, even if they managed to surmount the language problems. That diversity may eliminate any possibility of a pax Europea even before it gets out of the gate, but I think there are more important values to adhere to.

Trouble is, it's not clear what Mr. Johnson thinks about all this either. He never says what he thinks the EU should learn from the successes and failures of ancient Rome. The argument he makes are so neatly stacked and readably explained that a lack of some central lesson is conspicuous enough in its absence to be considered a major flaw.

(I read the British edition of this book)