It sometimes feels as if it would be easier to document the hundreds of thousands of refugees and migrants who came to Europe in 2016 than to name all the people who have influenced this book and the institutions from whose generosity I have benefited.
The true shaper of this book was Lenny Benardo, who twice read and edited it. His insights can be found on many pages. A number of the ideas I articulate here grow out of conversations with Stephen Holmes and Mark Leonard. Jan-Werner Müller and John Palattella not only read and commented on the book in detail but did much to shape my thinking about populism. Soli Ozel and Fyodor Lukyanov offered me important insights on Turkey and Russia. I am indebted to Damon Linker, my editor at Penn Press, and to my literary agent Toby Mundy for their persistent critical encouragement. Toby was great in making me believe that there is only one thing worse than writing a book in the middle of a great transformation: not to write it at all.
I would like to thank my colleagues at the Center for Liberal Strategies in Sofia, Bulgaria, and particularly Yana Papazova, for their unconditional support and help. Without Yana, this book would never have been finished. IWM provided me with abundant time and ideal working conditions. I also benefited enormously from discussions and lunchtime exchanges with many IWM fellows, but I would like to single out Holly Case and Shalini Randeria. Holly is as passionate about the EU as only an American historian of nineteenth-century Europe could be, and Shalini is as knowledgeable about Europe as one might expect from an Indian intellectual who has spent his entire career on the continent. I was privileged two years ago to be offered the chance to write a monthly column for the New York Times. The regularity of this exercise has disciplined my mind, while my editors, Clay Risen and Max Strasser, have helped me to do a better job of capturing what is really important in current debate. Marc Plattner of the Journal of Democracy allowed me to explore the book’s themes in his pages and, in doing so, allowed me to benefit from his editorial suggestion. To Adam Garfinkel, I owe the literary neologism “Perhapsburg.” This word alone prompted me to see Europe through a different set of analytical eyes.
I would like to thank my family, with whom I practice the daily routine of reflecting on developments around the world: my wife, Dessy, who is a master of the art of civil disagreement and an adept at posing questions nobody else dares to ask; and my daughter, Niya, and son, Yoto, whose very existence urges me on in seeking understanding of the world they will grow up to live and thrive in.