The economy is not an abstraction. The economy consists of people, and it will only grow if people feel secure and are reasonably free.

U.S. companies earn more from their investments in the EU than in the rest of the world combined.

Indeed, American companies make three times as much profits from their investment in one E.U. country, Ireland, than they do from all their investments in China.

The EU and the U.S. often work together to develop international standards. This is the case in fighting terrorism and transnational crime, advancing trade liberalization, and combating piracy and intellectual property violations.

When the E.U. and the U.S. agree, other countries follow.

The Irish Free State was one of dozens of new European democracies to emerge from the cauldron of the 1914-1918 war. It was one of the very few that was still democratic in 1939. This book shows how the steely determination of one man, Kevin O'Higgins, made this possible. O'Higgins faced down mutinies in both the Gardai and the Army. He dissolved the Dáil Courts which were a parallel system that might easily have undermined the conventional courts. With WT Cosgrave, he put through a constitution which reconciled the local opponents of independence with the new State.

We in Ireland have not been immune from the bigotry and the indifference which manifested itself in Europe this century