Europe, Europe [Hardcover]

Hans Magnus Enzensberger (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 29, 1989

In this highly acclaimed and entertaining book, already "among the touchstones of the new travel writing" (Newsweek), one of West Germany's leading authors takes us on an insider's tour of Europe in the recent past. Focusing on Italy, Poland, Hungary, Sweden, Spain, and Portugal, he describes how Europe has been moving toward a new identity.

Enzensberger makes a witty and knowledgeable traveling companion, delving into surprising corners and byways—from the back alleys of Budapest to the halls of the Italian mint—and striking up conversations with everyone from bankers to revolutionaries, astrologers to apparatchiks. In the process, he suggests that Europe's strength lies increasingly in embracing diversity and improvisation, not bigness and regimentation. He enables us to see with fresh eyes one of the most exciting parts of the world today.

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Enzensberger's disillusioned travel diary based on his wanderings through six European countries is an acerbically witty look at a continent beset by corruption, shadow economies, discredited political parties, and laboring under a crazy-quilt of special-interest groups. This German essayist ( Politics and Crime ) and poet finds the Swedes docile, conformist, touched by historical innocence. His sarcastic sketch of Italy lightly mocks a people obsessed with status and intrigue. In Portugal, he contemplates the stolid natives' passive sabotage that undermines capitalist efficiency. A Polish woman tells him: "Feminism is a detested aberration! Our men worship us, it's true . . . and that's the source of our power." In Hungary, he sees a people stagnating because the political system won't tolerate needed economic reforms. "Madrid is about as festive as Moscow or Houston," the author quips. These sharply illuminating vignettes gauge the social and political realities of each country with a perspicacity rare in travel writing.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

"Spirited, acute, and brilliantly observant."
—The New York Times

"[Enzensberger is] a raconteur of mordant wit . . . a trenchant political thinker . . . a pleasure to read."
—Newsweek

"[Enzensberger's] piercing perception, his talent for evoking astonishing scenes and persons . . . and finally his angry loyalty to truth, make Europe, Europe a collection to which I'll resort for inspiration again and again."
—The New York Review of Books --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 325 pages
• Publisher: Pantheon; First Edition edition (April 29, 1989)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0394558197
• ISBN-13: 978-0394558196
• Product Dimensions: 8.7 x 6.1 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,883,673 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Hans Magnus Enzensberger is one of Germany's greatest living writers. In The Number Devil he has written a book that is essential reading for anyone - of any age who has ever been mystified by maths. The author lives in Munich.