The New Super Regions of Europe

This paper summarizes and analyzes reporter Darrell Delamaide's book The New Superregions of Europe. It is Delamaide's contention that the dramatically changing face of Europe--especially with the fall of communism, the still-continuing divisive and violent conflicts, and the rising influence of the European Community (EC) and other cross-border organizations--requires a new way of looking at the continent that is equally dramatic. He believes that Europe has formed itself into eight "superregions" and two special districts that act as "capital cities" of power and money. These alliances have been in some ways formalized. He believes additional alliances need to be established and recognized for the continent's overall economic and cultural good. Despite some obvious weaknesses in his argument, Delamaide's view offers an especially compelling perspective from which both politicians and the business community (within Europe as well as those wishing to enter European markets) may consider a complex and volatile future.

The final decades of the twentieth century have sorely tested the world's mapmakers. Wars, both civil and international, as well as political upheavals including the unexpectedly sudden collapse of communism, seem to redraw borders almost daily. However, culture, language, geography, and shared history offer the observer a way to find patterns in the chaos. Delamaide believes that the key to understandi

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tand and respect. His case for Brussels is also solid, since this is in fact where the EC is headquartered, employing 16,000 people and drawing to it the many other organizations and institutions that wish to work with the EC or seek its favor. However, he only sketches his arguments for Strasbourg as the third peg of the triangle and his specific reasoning remains unclear on this point. Delamaide's arguments for the existence of the remaining four superregions are also less compelling for differing reasons. By his own definition, a superregion consists of an area across which formal borders are ignored in favor of cooperative efforts which seek to help all concerned. His remaining four designations do not so neatly fit this definition. The first is the Alpine Arc, the smallest region geographically and including only 14 million people. The natural barrier of the Alps encouraged the region's history of isolationism and neutrality, and Delamaide does present some strong evidence to consider this region as a separate kind of affiliation, though it seems to receive its own designation as a superregion simply because it does not readily fit in with any of its neighbors. In Delamaide's scheme, every area either joins an existin
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Some common words found in the essay are:
Community EC, Capital District, Saxony Germany, United Kingdom, Caucasus Mountains, Kaliningrad Trieste, Fourth Mitteleuropa, Canary Wharf, Superregions Europe, Sea Mediterranean--all, delamaide's view, atlantic coast, balkan peninsula, superregions europe, shared history, special districts, superregion status, power importance, peace prosperity, eight superregions,
Approximate Word count = 2414
Approximate Pages = 10 (250 words per page)

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