There is hardly a member of the European Union whose past is not more prosperous, secure, expansive, and influential than its present. During every age of European civilization, someone has held the upper hand, and lost it. Perhaps thanks to the maturity that comes of rising and falling, this neighborhood of high pedigrees and inflated egos managed, after its last great conflagration, to settle into the idea of sharing its croquet lawns. That idea is suddenly in retreat. Was the European Union a passing whim?

In Defence of Europe is a work of controlled anger from a disappointed European. Loukas Tsoukalis, who chairs a pro-EU think tank in Athens, argues that the eurozone’s sovereign debt and refugee crises exposed design weaknesses, creating winners and losers. He writes from Europe’s periphery, the ultimate loser, bringing forth incontrovertible economic data that back up a stinging indictment of the north, especially Germany. “Democracy is not a given, nor is peace,” he ominously warns three pages before the end.