The European Union

The Reference Shelf is an unusual series which I had not encountered until now. Every year six books are produced, devoted to “a current topic in modern society” (among the others for 2005 are to be Women's Rights and Free Trade), each consisting principally of an anthology of representative articles. To judge by the present volume, these are mostly American and normally from newspapers and general magazines rather than academic journals. Most were written in the second half of 2004, though some were a year or two earlier. The series is intended for students (probably in the wider sense) and...