Jesuit priest Fr. Pierre de Charentenay, Editor of Études,
scholar, and former Director of the Catholic Office of Information and Initiative
for Europe, recounts his recent experiences in Iraq and the great pressure under
which the Christian community is operating there. Kidnappings and murder of high
Church officials--including
the Archbishop of Mosul pictured at left above--and massive emmigration among
Christians are working to purge the nation of its Christian minority.
A shocking fact should give readers pause: the 20th
Cenutury--not the Roman Empire--is the period in which
the greatest number of Christian martyrs have died for
their faith; the 21st appears to be continuing
this unfortunate trend.
May 8, 2008, noon, 223 Moses Hall

The European Economy in an American Mirror
Barry Eichengreen, former IES
Director and Professor of Economics and Political Science
at UC Berkeley, along with Michael Landesman, Professor
at Johannes Kepler University, Linz, Austria, and Dieter
Stiefel, Professor at the Department for Social and Economic
History and the Department of Economics, University
of Vienna, have just coedited a volume comparing American
and European economic realities.
Europe’s economy is under strain due to lagging
productivity growth, an aging population, the
difficulties of adjustment in an enlarged European Union,
and the challenges of globalization. In comparison with
the United States, rates of growth of GDP per capita and
labor productivity are anemic, raising questions about
the viability of a distinct European model. In the
book an array of international contributors use the
comparison with the United States as a way of taking
the temperature of the European economy.
Power and German Foreign Policy: Embedded
Hegemony in Europe
What
will German foreign policy look like in 2015? IES Associate
Director Beverly Crawford dares
to speculate by making a provocative argument: What drives
German policy is its power position in Europe. Carefully
examining German diplomatic and military manoeuvres in the
Balkans, its role in European Monetary Union, and its leadership
in curbing Europe's proliferation of WMD technology, Professor
Crawford shows how German power is linked to its "embedded
hegemony" in
Europe and to the changing state of its economy. In each
case she shows how those linkages interact to shape foreign
policy.