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Contents : EUROPE NYC New York Consortium for European Studies NEW Y ORK U NIVERSITY C OLUMBIA U NIVERSITY November 2006 CENTER FOR EUROPEAN AND MEDITERRANEAN STUDIES New York University 285 Mercer Street 7th floor New York NY 10003 Telephone: 212.998.3838 Fax: 212.995.4188 K. E. Fleming Director Jennifer Denbo Assistant Director Leah Ramirez Administrative Aide Sylvia Zareva Editor and Writer Dominika Ornatowska Writer Dragana Vesovic Writer INSTITUTE FOR THE STUDY OF EUROPE Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs 420 West 118th Street New York NY 10027 Telephone: 212.854.4618 Fax: 212.854.8599 Volker Berghahn Director John Micgiel Executive Director Kevin Hallinan Assistant Director Europeans Are Good at Imitating Bad at Innovating By David Jestaz Discussions on economic models and institutions in Europe and America differ in many ways. There are numerous reasons for this. This article goes beyond the conventional dichotomy that portrays America as being more capitalist and Europe as more socialist. It strives to demonstrate why European economies are failing or moving forward with hesitation to adopt an entrepreneurship model. A lot of current opinion is based on a misunderstanding of the wellknown glorious thirty years Europe experienced in the wake of the continued on page 4 David Jestaz is Alliance Professor at the School of International and Public Affairs Columbia University More in this issue: SUBSCRIBE The Center for European Studies hosts EUROLIST an electronic medium through which the NYU community can be kept aware of information and events relating to Europe. To subscribe to EUROLIST please go to http://forums.nyu.edu/ cgi-bin/nyu.pl enter eurolist a nd click on "join eurolist". It is also possible for subscribers to submit messages to the list. Sir Rodric Braithwaite former British ambassador to the Soviet Union pays tribute to Moscow defenders...................2 Around 450 people attend a panel on religion and society in The Netherlands..................................................................5 Doctoral candidate says colonial policies paved the way for Nazism...............3 Hungarian historians Csaba Bekes and Attila Szakolczai talk about the lessons of the 1956 Hungarian Relovution................8 EuroDigest...................................................3 D utch analysts Rob Hagendijk and Nora van der Linden warn that populists may be getting stronger in the Netherlands.............................................................5 French sociologist Alexis Spire relates French racism to the country's colonial past......................................................................8 Upcoming events........................................9 2 EUROPE NYC Braithwaite Celebrates Moscow Defenders in New Book Columbia University: Thursday Oct. 5 By Sylvia Zareva Muscovites have every reason to be proud of their ancestors victory against the German Army in the 1941 Battle of Moscow despite Stalin s subsequent exploitation of their feat and the Red Army s atrocious war record said Sir Rodric Braithwaite former British ambassador to the Soviet Union at a talk at Columbia on Thursday Oct. 5. This is also the message of Braithwaite s most recent book Moscow 1941: A City and Its People at War. The people of Moscow were fighting for Russia and not for the Bolshevik Party and it is their story The poster that inspired Sir Rodric. he was trying to tell in Moscow 1941 he added. Braithwaite whose previous books include Across the Moscow River and Russia in Europe said the idea for his latest book came while he was walking down Gorky Street in Moscow on the day of the sixtieth anniversary of the Battle of Moscow. He found himself looking at a commemorative poster depicting people looking apprehensively skyward. They were ordinary Russians who were being told via a publicaddress loudspeaker that Germany had attacked the Soviet Union. Shortly most of those people whether as volunteers or conscripts would be thrown against a muchbetter-prepared enemy and most of them probably perished. Braithwaite realized he was standing at approximately the same spot as the people in the poster 60 years before had stood when they got the news and he was deeply moved. Therefore he set out to write a history of ordinary Muscovites under siege. I wanted to make these people come alive as real people Braithwaite said. Realistically the victory could not be attributed solely to the city defenders stoicism and courage Braithwaite said. The Soviet leadership s ruthlessness and German miscalculations played as big a role in determining the battle s outcome. Yet the book Sir Rodric Braithwaite author of Moscow 1941: A City and Its People at War is not a military history nor is it very concerned with politics and political figures. Moscow 1941 is a tribute to t

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