This is Europe: The Way We Live Now

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Given the predicaments the subjects inhabit, which are mostly perilous or exploitative, this is probably no great surprise. Still, you can’t help wonder whether this human churn, this vast cheap labour source and the global instability that drives it, is sustainable. Tismaneanu, Vladimir (May 2014). "Reviewed Work: Fragile Empire: How Russia Fell In and Out of Love with Vladimir Putin by Ben Judah". International Affairs. 90 (3): 725–727. The thumbnail was modified from a picture taken by David Holt available at https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:London_November_23_2018_(19)_Extinction_Rebellion_Protest_Tower_Hill.jpg Ben Judah is a Franco-British author and journalist. He has reported from across Europe, with his writing on politics and society featuring widely, including in The New York Times, The Financial Times and Foreign Policy. Judah, Ben (October 2009). "Moscow: Putin's Empire Strikes Out". Standpoint Magazine. Archived from the original on 9 March 2016 . Retrieved 19 February 2016.

Our programs and centers deliver in-depth, highly relevant issue briefs and reports that break new ground, shift opinions, and set agendas on public policy, with a focus on advancing debates by integrating foundational research and analysis with concrete policy solutions. Feinberg, Richard (November 2013). "Fragile Empire: How Russia Fell In and Out of Love with Vladimir Putin". Foreign Affairs. 92 (6). The book is divided into 23 chapters that each take the name of a different town or city, and essentially focus on the plight of one person therein. So in Budapest we find Ibrahim, a Syrian refugee who yearns to act, to attain financial success, to be a celebrity. In a few cases Judah gets so close to his protagonists that he writes as if from inside their heads, in the manner of WG Sebald. There’s the Polish registrar in Catford, for example, who describes her own love life as well as her job marrying couples and deciding which ones are genuine and which doing it for a passport. When she recalls being invited to a Nigerian-Polish wedding party, on “one of those lingering and beautiful fallings of light there is only in England in the summer”, she loses herself in rapture and he lets her run on as if he’s not there. It’s an interesting read. I don’t know if you’ve listened to “From Our Own Correspondent” on Radio 4, or “This American Life” on NPR, but it reminded me of those programmes, to a degree. The biggest difference being that the stories weren’t mediated by the reporter/journalist as much. Instead you get the story’s core character relating their experiences to the reader directly.

Rich Goldberg: Your new book, This Is Europe, a follow-up to a very similar genre, which was critically acclaimed, This Is London: Life and Death in the World City. I’m curious, how did you come to writing this kind of book, and especially this kind of series? Heir to the great literary-journalistic travellers of the recent past — Ryszard Kapuściński, James Fenton, Bruce Chatwin, Jonathan Raban — but resisting their urge to fabricate for the sake of a good story, Judah is alert to the darker currents swirling through our beleaguered times — climate breakdown, the depredations of Covid, hostility to immigrants, the mass movement of millions towards sanctuary and a new life within self-protecting Western societies often ill-disposed or ill-equipped to offer a modicum of hospitality. The Belarussian family, after being in a protest, having to flee the country, going from a normal life to a life on the run. I became a journalist because I love the experience of traveling around cities and continents and listening to people with very, very different points of view one after the other. So I wanted to write a book that had the closest possible feel to that—where you could read the book and you would meet, like me, one person after another from all over Europe telling their own stories in their own way and in their own voices. I don’t think there’s anything particularly special or interesting about the sort of “great white male wandering around” anymore. I think that’s a really outdated way of writing about things. How did you decide which people to include in the book? The man fleeing his country, losing his wife and daughter on the way, ending up in France with his son.

Is migration changing the very essence of Europe? Could the European Union become the tool of right-wing populists? Is it possible for Britain to rejoin the European Union under a future Labour government?A "Washington Strategy" for British Diplomacy". Policy Exchange. February 2021 . Retrieved 24 September 2021. In a series of vivid but always empathetic portraits of other people’s lives, journalist Ben Judah invites us to meet them. Drawn from hours of painstaking interviews, these vital stories reveal a vibrant continent which has been transformed by diversity, migration, the internet, climate change, Covid, war and the quest for freedom. As we face the concurrent threats of pandemics, climate change, and other existential threats, I spoke with Dougald Hine, author of "At Work in the Ruins: Finding Our Place in the Time of Science, Climate Change, Pandemics and All Other Emergencies," to discuss how perceptions are changing in response to these challenges. IranSource provides a holistic look at Iran’s internal dynamics, global and regional policies, and posture through unique analysis of current events and long-term, strategic issues related to Iran.

Xinjiang: Taming China's Wild West | Standpoint". Archived from the original on 9 March 2016 . Retrieved 19 February 2016. Ben Judah is director of the Transform Europe Initiative and a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Europe Center. His current research focus is on the European consequences of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, transnational kleptocracy, European energy and decarbonization politics, and Britain’s attempts to reset its diplomatic posture after Brexit. In Washington, DC, he has worked closely with the offices of Democratic senators, including Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), in seeking to develop a global anti-money-laundering agenda as a central plank of US foreign policy. What is Europe? A continent beset by war and recently plague, countries often more remarkable by their difference than their similarity, a political union increasingly unsure of itself. It’s a knotty question. This is Europe by Ben Judah knits 23 vignettes from people who live here, from Ireland to Turkey, attempting to understand what makes this continent work. Or perhaps, more foundational: what makes it a continent? A portrait of Europe as you’ve never seen it before, told through twenty extraordinary stories of the people who live and breathe it.

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Thumbnail image is a modified version of a photo originally created by Julian Herzog, available at https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Car2Go_Charging_Station_Stuttgart_2013_01.jpg.