Hannan, of course, takes his title from F.A. Hayek's 1944 "The Road to Serfdom" whose essential message is that centralized power leads to serfdom.  European socialism has been riven with colossal failures - and much serfdom. English European Parliament member, Daniel Hannan surveys the damage done in the past 60 years to the European political-economy; European culture and even intelligence and attitudes. It is not a positive sweep and view of Europe's latest implementation of state-managed and government-coerced Statism or supposedly benign socialism. Communalism in any form not only leads to financial bankruptcy, but it will eviscerate higher culture, learning and morality along the way. The destruction of culture is intimately tied into, the annihilation of the financial and political-economy. These two fires of demolition feed each other.

Hannan recounts some rather obvious yet disturbing aspects of European Neo-Marxism:

-60% of all laws applicable in England emanate from Brussels, a figure which is only going up [I remember it was 50% about 10 years ago].

-Few if any voters know anything about the EU, the EU council, the budget process, or who their EU Parliamentary member is.

-The British National Health Service is revered as an 'icon' by the British, yet its record on treating cancer, complex illnesses, allowing for the rich and connected to get treated at the expense of the 'mass', and its crowded hospitals and lack of access makes a mockery of the claim that the system is fair, equal or moral. Cancer death rates for example are 40% higher in Britain than in the socialized [yes it is government controlled] US health system. This equates into about 20.000 dead a year So much for morality.

-Massive subsidies from the EU to chosen sectors [agriculture, telecoms, manufacturing etc], in other countries such as France and Spain. In other words the British for instance are having their taxes fund Spanish farmers and French industrial firms. What is intelligent about is ?

-Looming bankruptcy. Hannon goes through the real debts including off the balance liabilities that put private market executives in jail. It is hard to see how Europe will avoid a nuclear financial implosion or how the Euro will survive in its present form.

-Lack of knowledge. It is indeed quite frightening when one travels and lives in Europe to hear the general ignorance about anything meaningful. Socialized education does not produce Mozarts or Churchills. It produces parrots and state knaves. Such is the value of 'free' education and socialized teaching processes. So the European hides the ignorance about his own culture, language, architecture, history and development by lapsing into the old cliches. North Americans are fat, hairy brutes who grunt and eat with their hands. Europeans are cultured gentlemen, refined, able to quote Wittgenstein and Cervantes at will, profoundly nuanced and high-brow. The opposite is probably more accurate as Hannan illustrates. North Americans for instance read more books, go to more high cultural events, give more to charity and know far more about their own history or culture than Europeans. Hannan at least has the honesty to state this.

In fact Hannan devotes a fair amount of his book to demolishing the stereotypes of Americans [and Canadians by extension]. It is clear that in the real world North Americans are at least as well travelled and more informed about the rest of the world than Europeans. North American culture is rich and diverse and always has been. North American popular culture including the North American creations of movies, television, Imax theatre, pop-music [which I loathe], Jazz [okay a little better than pop but not by much], and even modern classical [Gershwin et al.]; along with its literary output; has long superseded that of the European. This says nothing of North American dynamism in business, technology, and even in domains of charity, social reform and poor relief. North Americans aren't the chattering-boors that Europeans believe and are usually a lot more polite. So much for Europe's cultural and social superiority.

The main theme that Hannan proposes is that orthodox conservatism is the best means to organize society. This is not libertarianism as some reviewers of Hannan's writings maintain [he has written 7 books]. It is a call to go back to basics, to the founding principles of orthodox Conservatism which made the Anglo nations strong and prosperous:

"The United States is the realization of a libertarian archetype -- both in theory and in practice. Its constitution .... is unique in the emphasis it places on the individual rather than the government."

Libertarian in the sense of the US Constitution is really conservatism. A libertarian society is both impracticable and undesirable. It would be too atomized. But a society premised around economic, cultural and political conservatism is certainly viable, prudent and successful. Notice that I did not include social conservatism. In Hannan's view and in my own opinion, social causes and mores are private. They cannot be apart of the general program to organize the political economy. If the ideology of the state's organization is correct and moral; the private social ethos will naturally follow. This is clearly illustrated throughout history.

This is a good book to read if you are interested in North American's looming, and bankrupted future. Follow Europe down Hayek's road to serfdom and the negative derivatives will be plain to see. As Hannan elucidates, European-socialism, as communalism in any guise undoubtedly does, not only degrades your political-economy and cheapens your culture, it leads directly into immorality and the replacement of reality with irrationality. Thus shibboleths and myths are erected which tear apart and distort the underlying fabric of Judeo-Christian civilisation. You don't have to be religious to understand that JC culture produced the modern world and former European and American greatness. You just have to be sentient. The real question is thus – why would anyone follow this program of degenerate and immoral mediocrity? I have no idea. But I am sure that the media and various academics can promulgate twisted theories and answers. Hannan refutes them.