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the problems facing Europe today are not sui generis. They are merely the latest installment of a story that has been unfolding for many decades.

In 1997 he wrote: “Europe’s common market exemplifies a situation that is unfavorable to a common currency. It is composed of separate nations, whose residents speak different languages, have different customs and have far greater loyalty and attachment to their own country than to the common market or to the idea of ‘Europe.’ ”

Mr. Friedman concluded that the adoption of the euro “would exacerbate political tensions by converting divergent shocks that could have been readily accommodated by exchange rate changes into divisive political issues.”

Catalonia has handed a clear majority to parties actively seeking the region’s secession from Spain.

An agreement will have to be reached between the two main pro-independence parties in order to secure that absolute majority and the central government in Madrid has promised to fight tooth and nail to prevent secession.

A: Catalonia has, for centuries, treasured its own language and culture. But, during Franco’s dictatorship, its language was banned. The recent surge in independence sentiment stems from June 2010, when Spain’s highest court struck down key parts of a charter that would have granted Catalonia more autonomy and recognised it as a nation within Spain.

E-mail addthis_pub = 'nybooks'; addthis_logo = 'http://www.nybooks.com/images/logo-150.gif'; addthis_logo_background = 'ffffff'; addthis_logo_color = '666666'; addthis_brand = 'NYRB'; addthis_options = 'favorites, facebook, twitter, tumblr, reddit, digg, stumbleupon, delicious, google, more'; Share Print Comments (function() { var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0], rdb = document.createElement('script'); rdb.type = 'text/javascript'; rdb.async = true; rdb.src = document.location.protocol + '//www.readability.com/embed.js'; s.parentNode.insertBefore(rdb, s); })(); Young Israelis: A Turn to the Right? Eyal Press Uriel Sinai/Getty Images Children at the local school in the village of Ghajar, on Israeli-Lebanese border, which was recaptured during the 2006 war against Hezbollah in Lebanon, November 10, 2010 Shortly after the democratic uprising began in Egypt, a group of young Israelis led by freelance journalist Dimi Reider launched Kav Hutz (“Outside Line”), a Hebrew-language blog devoted to covering the events across the border. Unable to enter Egypt on short notice with his Israeli passport—a predicament all Israeli correspondents faced—Reider chronicled the insurrection by posting minute-by-minute updates culled from an array of online sources on the ground: Al Jazeera, The Guardian, Egyptian bloggers. The tone of Reider’s blog was reportorial, but hardly detached. “Good luck,” he wrote on the eve of the huge “Day of Departure” rally in Tahrir Square—a sentiment rarely voiced in Israel’s mainstream media, which stressed the danger of a takeover by the Muslim Brotherhood if the protesters prevailed. By the time Egyptians had succeeded in overthrowing Hosni Mubarak, Kav Hutz was getting up to 12,000 visitors a day and had been singled out in Haaretz for leaving the rest of the Israeli press “in the dust.” As the story suggests, Egypt’s uprising managed to inspire not only countless young Arabs but also some young Israelis. A contributor to +972, an Israel-based online magazine that features commentary and reporting by mostly young progressives—it is named after the area code shared by Israel and the Palestinian territories—Reider was deeply moved by the courage of the protesters in Cairo and dismayed by the patronizing reaction of many Israelis. “The line the establishment took was that it’s all very nice but they’re going to end up like Iran,” he recalls. “I didn’t take that line because I bothered to read stuff by Egyptians and it quickly became apparent that the Muslim Brotherhood was just one player. It also felt distasteful to me to judge the extraordinary risks Egyptians were taking solely by our profit—by how it would affect Israeli security and the policy of a government I don’t support anyway.” For observers troubled by Israel’s alarming recent shift to the right, the emergence of Internet-savvy liberal voices like Reider’s may seem heartening. But while such bloggers appear more capable of reaching a younger demographic than Haaretz—the venerable leftist newspaper whose aging readership seems likely to shrink in the years to come—it’s not clear how many of their contemporaries are listening to them. One reason is apathy. Increasingly cynical about politics and the prospects of peace, not a few young Israelis I’ve met in recent years have told me they’ve stopped following the news. When they go online, it’s to chat with friends, not to check out sites like +972. There are also growing numbers of young Israelis who simply don’t share Reider’s views. Against the 12,000 readers of Kav Hutz were countless others who didn’t question the alarmist tone of their country’s mass-circulation tabloids when the revolt in Egypt began, as NPR discovered when it aired a segment on what Israeli youth thought of the uprising. “For us it is better to have Mubarak,” one young Israeli said. “I kind of feel sad for President Mubarak,” said another. “For the last two or three years, we’ve been seeing a very consistent trend of younger Israelis becoming increasingly right-wing,” Dahlia Scheindlin, a public opinion analyst who also contributes to +972, told me. Last year, Scheindlin carried out a survey on behalf of the Kulanana Shared Citizenship Initiative that showed eroding support for democratic values among Israeli youth, at least insofar as the rights of non-Jews go. One question in the survey asked whether there should be “Equal access to state resources, equal opportunities [for] all citizens.” Among Jewish respondents between the ages of 16-29, a mere 43 percent agreed.

In October, a poll conducted by New Wave Research asked, “If Palestinians and Israelis reach an agreement… and the Israeli government brings the agreement to a referendum, would you vote for or against?” Among voters over 55, 61 percent—nearly two out of three—said they would support a deal. Among those younger than 35, it was the opposite: only one in three (37 percent) would vote in favor of an agreement.

One reason tolerance may be less widespread among young Israelis is that they rarely interact with Palestinians or Arab-Israelis. “You don’t see Palestinians on the streets of Israel,”

Even white Americans of modest means are more likely to have inherited something, in the form of housing wealth or useful professional connections, than the descendants of slaves

When Affirmative Action Was White, Ira Katznelson recounts in fascinating detail the various ways in which the New Deal and Fair Deal social programs of the 1930s and 1940s expanded economic opportunities for whites while doing so unevenly at best for blacks, particularly in the segregated South.

Many rural whites who had known nothing but the direst poverty saw their lives transformed as everything from rural electrification to generous educational benefits for veterans allowed them to build human capital, earn higher incomes, and accumulate savings. This legacy, in ways large and small, continues to enrich the children and grandchildren of the whites of that era. This is the stuff of white privilege. …

For all our talk about separation of church and state, religious language has been written into our political culture in countless ways. It is inscribed in our pledge of patriotism, marked on our money, carved into the walls of our courts and our Capitol. Perhaps because it is everywhere, we assume it has been from the beginning.

the founding fathers didn’t create the ceremonies and slogans that come to mind when we consider whether this is a Christian nation. Our grandfathers did.

Back in the 1930s, business leaders found themselves on the defensive. Their public prestige had plummeted with the Great Crash; their private businesses were under attack by Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal from above and labor from below. To regain the upper hand, corporate leaders fought back on all fronts. They waged a figurative war in statehouses and, occasionally, a literal one in the streets; their campaigns extended from courts of law to the court of public opinion.

what about us "experts?" What have we learned? Are there really any significant new insights? Do we know much more today than we did a generation ago?

France uplifted the downtrodden people of Algeria and Indo-China

My generation was deeply influenced half a century ago by economists and mathematicians. We scholars all wanted to be - and particularly to show -- that we had mastered all the techniques of our professions as social scientists, that we could build models, make graphs, juxtapose trends, etc. After all, we were writing our learned books and essays for our academic colleagues and our paymasters, not for those we were describing. So, at least those who were paid by our government and its proxy think tanks often became, as the English say, "too clever by half." They and their counterparts in universities, after all, had to prove their "smarts" in order to get funded, promoted or kept on

A recent study conducted by researchers at Georgetown University, for instance, compared two groups of toddlers. One group played with plush toys that had been preprogrammed to say the child’s name, and to say that they had the same favorite food and song as the child; the other played with plush toys that called each child “Pal” and liked different things. When the same toy character on-screen presented math skills — like arranging cups in order of size — the first group of toddlers performed better than those who played with less-personalized plush toys

toys able to personalize their responses to children in real time could have an even greater effect on them.

Mr. Jacob hit upon the idea of developing conversational characters for children a few years ago after his daughter Toby, then 7, asked him if she could use Skype to talk to her stuffed animals. He had previously worked as the chief technology officer at Pixar Animation Studios. So he talked over the possibility with a former Pixar colleague, Martin Reddy. They decided to start ToyTalk.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has suggested his counterparts south of the border would do well to know more about the rest of the world.

He answered in stereotypical Canadian fashion, suggesting "it might be nice" if Americans "paid a little more attention to the world."

n myriad polls and surveys, Americans are often found to be among the most "ignorant" populations in the developed world. Contrary to trends elsewhere, the rate of foreign language study by college students in the United States is declining, not increasing.

The Alibaba Group, the Chinese Internet giant, is making an ambitious play to reshape media coverage of its home country, taking aim at what company executives call the “negative” portrayal of China in the Western media.

As the backbone of this effort, Alibaba agreed on Friday to buy the media assets of the SCMP Group, including one of Hong Kong’s most influential English language daily newspapers, The South China Morning Post. Alibaba is acquiring an award-winning newspaper that for decades has reported aggressively on subjects that China’s state-run media outlets are forbidden to cover, like political scandals and human-rights cases.

Alibaba said the deal was fueled by a desire to improve China’s image and offer an alternative to what it calls the biased lens of Western news outlets. While Alibaba said the Chinese government had no role in its deal to buy the Hong Kong newspaper, the company’s position aligns closely with that of the Communist Party, which has grown increasingly critical of the way Western news organizations cover China.

suddenly, Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius of France asked for opposition to the deal and, hearing none, gaveled the session closed.

The new accord changes that dynamic by requiring action in some form from every country, rich or poor. The echoes of those divides persisted during the negotiations, however.

Mr. Fabius, who has presided over the assembly, made an emotional appeal.

the most significant political figure in France — some would argue the most powerful — is Marine Le Pen, the leader of the far right.

It also highlighted the appeal of baldly nationalist messages on both sides of the Atlantic at a time when traditional parties are struggling to address the insecurities of voters facing economic dislocation and a sense of vulnerability to terrorism.

“More than ever the National Front has become the heart of French political life and the political party around which the others situate themselves,”

How We Should Talk About Mental Health in 2016

In 2015, Britain's mental health crisis grew increasingly dismal

The human ramifications of the mental healthcare failings of 2015 make for upsetting reading.

the headline grabber in the paper from the liberal thinktank CentreForum concerns ethnicity: the serial losers after 28 years of marketisation, testing, a centralised curriculum and decentralised control of schools are poor white kids.

“During the early years, white British pupils are among the highest achievers,” say the authors. “By the end of secondary school however, those white British pupils are overtaken by 10 other ethnic groups to just below average, when compared with other ethnicities.”

Thatcherite culture celebrated the chancers and the semi-crooks: people who had been shunned in the solidaristic working-class towns became the economic heroes of the new model – the security-firm operators, the contract-cleaning slave drivers; the outright hoodlums operating in plain sight as the cops concentrated on breaking strikes.

Fukuyama sees citizen identification with their own nation state as an important part of liberal democracy. In contrast to most progressive leaders, he does not view multiculturalism and the celebration of different ethnicities and sexual orientation as a step forward to more personal freedom. Instead, he sees these new demands for individual identity as destabilizing to modern nation states. 

Fukuyama states that “demand for recognition of one’s identity is a master concept that unifies much of what is going on in world politics today.”

This demand for recognition of individual identity, whether based on race, religion or gender, has been accelerated by the explosion in international trade and travel and the rise of the Internet and social media. The latter communication tools have “facilitated the emergence of self-contained communities, walled off not by physical barriers but by belief in shared identity.”

It is fitting that Japan’s earliest remaining works, composed at a time when the country was so strongly under the civilizing influence of China, should be of a historical character. In the Confucian tradition, the writing of history has always been held in the highest esteem, since Confucianists believe that the lessons of the past provide the best guide for ethical rule in the present and future. In contrast to the Indians, who have always been absorbed with metaphysical and religious speculation and scarcely at all with history, the Chinese are among the world’s greatest record-keepers.

he wrote that it is precisely because life and nature are changeable and uncertain that things have the power to move us.

The turbulent centuries of the medieval age produced many new cultural pursuits that catered to the tastes of various classes of society, including warriors, merchants, and even peasants. Yet, coloring nearly all these pursuits was miyabi, reflected in a fundamental preference on the part of the Japanese for the elegant, the restrained, and the subtly suggestive.

we fool ourselves if we don’t recognize that he is a sort of savant, a con man but an instinctive political animal who has a deep hold on a big chunk of the country. Language, tone and voice are at the heart of that. Understanding how this happened is well worth our time.

humans are not yet beyond saving themselves from the worst ravages of global warming. There’s fight in us yet, even if it’s a bit shapeless.

The problem – and it’s an existential threat both profound and perverse – is that those who lead us and have power over our shared destiny are ignoring global warming to the point of criminal negligence

Worse than that, their policies, language, patronal obligations and acts of bad faith are poisoning us, training citizens to accept the prospect of inexorable loss, unstoppable chaos, certain doom.

South Asia is geographically connected but psychologically divided. All the South Asian countries including India should move ahead together with China to realize the dream of creating the Asian Century," Dr. Yubaraj Sangroula, head of the KSL said in the inaugural ceremony.

The China- proposed Belt and Road Initiative has created new hopes in the whole region, an academician from Bangladesh

"It is not just about connectivity of roads or seas but connectivity of economies which can improve the lives of people of the whole region," said Hossain, the former dean of Bangladesh's Chittagong University.