There's an aspect to this which is a bit like numbers. People understand their own country, vaguely, how it works. But when you start thinking about supernational entities like the e u, and about some of the post breton woods financial institutions, people really just don't understand what any of them are or how they work. The european union is kind of caught between being partly successful and articulating a sense of purpose and identity at the european level that transcends previous identifications with individual nations.
Helen Thompson is Professor of Political Economy at the University of Cambridge, a columnist for The New Statesman, and has been a regular contributor to the Talking Politics podcast. Her new book, Disorder: Hard Times in the 21st Century, looks at decades of geopolitical history that have fed into our current moment: one of war and conflict, nations competing for dwindling natural resources, and the climate emergency casting a long shadow. She joins journalist and author Andrew Mueller to discuss how we got here.
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