Can Ireland return to prosperity and full employment? How do we make the Irish political system more effective and less prone to the sort of catastrophic errors that led to the misery of the 1950s, 1980s and today? Are the nations of Europe being dissolved into an EU superstate? Is the rise of Asia and the eclipse of the West imminent and inevitable?

In a volume of extraordinary analytical breadth and depth, Dan O'Brien gives answers to these questions and many more of pressing relevance to the rapidly changing world in which we live.

Along with much new material focusing on the unprecedented developments of this final year of the decade, Ireland, Europe and the World brings together articles and essays published in the Irish and international media over the past ten years.

This informed, thoughtful and elegantly written book by one of Ireland's most respected and original thinkers provides many insights into the future direction of Ireland and the wider world.