Thanks

First of all, thanks to my wonderful team of research assistants, led first by Josef Lolacher and then Luca Siepmann, and including Angelica Rossi-Hawkins, Malavika Pillai, Nayantara Ranganatha, Emma Rath, Frederik Wolter, Paulina Maziarska, Dominik Rubes and Arthur Kroen. They not only did excellent research but also gave me lots of interesting ideas, intra- and extra-European perspectives and feedback on several drafts.

Also to the Dahrendorf Programme and its director Dimitar Bechev, the European Studies Centre and its director Paul Betts, permanent and visiting Fellows, as well as administrators Julie Adams and Walid Elbaz, all of St Antony’s College, University of Oxford. It’s rare to have such a congenial and stimulating intellectual home. I also thank the Stiftung Mercator for its support of the Europe in a Changing World project of the Dahrendorf Programme, which fed directly into the work on this book. The Hoover Institution at Stanford University provided both an excellent work environment and an often critical perspective on Europe seen from afar.

The maps, with their carefully selected details, were drawn by Martin Davis of the Bodleian Libraries at Oxford. He contributed many helpful suggestions.

Warm thanks for help on particular points or areas to William Beinart, Jana Buehler, Kristijan Fidanovski, Harold James, Rana Mitter, Michael Mertes, Guy Milton, Miriam Rürup, Timothy Snyder, Isaac Stanley-Becker, Anthony Teasdale and David Womersley.

For their incisive comments on a complete second draft I’m particularly grateful to Ian McEwan and Michael Taylor.

The team at Bodley Head was, as usual, outstanding. Thanks in particular to Stuart Williams, Jorg Hensgen, Graeme Hall, Florence Ward and Aidan O'Neill. My agent, Natasha Fairweather, was as perceptively supportive as always.

More important to me than any continent are my family — Danuta, Tom and Alec.