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

It is not viable for one country to demand a right to increase and upgrade its nuclear weapons capabilities while asking others to eliminate theirs.

David Cameron says he wants to keep Britain in the EU, but his tactics are so divisive that, if he gets what he wants it will be at the price of huge ill-will in Europe; or if he doesn't, it will be at the price of increased anti-EU sentiment in his own party and in British society.

But our system of regulation must keep up with this. If it fails to keep up, it will hold back economic expansion. We need financial market regulation that works at national and European level.

The E.U. is more than just a trade organization or a common market; it is a guarantee of democracy, freedom, justice, and human rights. Nations cannot stay in the E.U. if they do not respect these guarantees.

Since creation of the E.U. a half century ago, Europe has enjoyed the longest period of peace in its history.

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.