This is Europe: The Way We Live Now

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In 2015, he was commended for the Feature Writer of the Year award at the British Press Awards. [26] Following his prize-nominated epic feat of reportage on the dizzyingly diverse multicultural and migrant underbelly of contemporary London, This is London (2016) — written in the spirit of George Orwell’s classic narratives of proletarian life in the 1930s — Judah has widened his angle of vision to take in Europe itself. Thumbnail image is a modified version of a photo originally created by Julian Herzog, available at https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Car2Go_Charging_Station_Stuttgart_2013_01.jpg. This book samples the lives of people living in Europe in recent years. It looks at lorry drives from Romania, porn actors from Turkey, ghost whisperers from Sweden, Belorussian democracy campaigners, and refugees from the Middle East. Each character gets a chapter.

The thumbnail was modified from a picture taken by David Holt available at https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:London_November_23_2018_(19)_Extinction_Rebellion_Protest_Tower_Hill.jpg I wanted to gather all these people into this book and have each of them tell us a story about what Europe is today,” says Judah, “and to have each of them answer that question of what Europe is through their own lives.” A portrait of Europe as you’ve never seen it before, told through twenty extraordinary stories of the people who live and breathe it.Judah writes in a staccato style, often in the second person. At times it can feel wearying and perhaps the book is not to be read in a single sitting. But when it works – and it mostly does – it reflects the heart of the project. These characters are not figures of history, nor are they mere data points. The Syrian man in Budapest is probably still making porn as you read this; Jelle likely still works in Rotterdam; the winemaker in Meursault is presumably worried about today’s weather and how it may affect his autumn harvest. What does it now mean to call yourself European? Who makes up this population of 750 million, sprawled from Portugal to Ukraine, from Sweden to Turkey? Who has always called it home, and who has newly arrived from elsewhere, hoping for better? Who are the people who drive our long-distance lorries, steward our criss-crossing planes, craft our legacy wines, fish our depleted waters, and risk life itself in search of safety and a new start?

Judah, Ben (October 2009). "Moscow: Putin's Empire Strikes Out". Standpoint Magazine. Archived from the original on 9 March 2016 . Retrieved 19 February 2016.

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Illuminating . . . a bold literary and journalistic experiment. Judah knows how to tell a story and does so with panache." ― The Spectator Who makes up this population of some 750 million, sprawled from Ireland to Ukraine, from Sweden to Turkey? Who has always called it home, and who has newly arrived from elsewhere? Who are the people who drive our long-distance lorries, steward our criss-crossing planes, lovingly craft our legacy wines, fish our depleted waters, and risk life itself in search of safety and a new start? I’m full of admiration for what Ben Judah has accomplished here. The scale, scope and ambition of the project is extraordinary.He was previously a fellow at the Hudson Institute in Washington, DC, leading research on the institute’s Kleptocracy Initiative. He was also previously a fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations in London and the European Stability Initiative in Istanbul. TIME: How did the idea for This Is Europe come together? Did you envisage it as kind of a sequel to your previous book, This Is London? Ben Judah is a Franco-British author and journalist. He has reported from across Europe, with his writing on politics and society featuring widely, including in The New York Times, The Financial Times and Foreign Policy. Judah has interviewed and profiled French President Emmanuel Macron, Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan and UK Chancellor Rishi Sunak. [4] [5] [6] He has covered the 2008 Russo-Georgian War, the 2010 Kyrgyz Revolution and the 2011 Tunisian Revolution. [7] [8] [9] He was a regular contributor to the magazine Standpoint, reporting from the Caucasus, Siberia, Central Asia and Xinjiang. [10] [11] [12] [13] [ non-primary source needed] Ben Judah is director of the Transform Europe Initiative and a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Europe Center. His current research focus is on the European consequences of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, transnational kleptocracy, European energy and decarbonization politics, and Britain’s attempts to reset its diplomatic posture after Brexit. In Washington, DC, he has worked closely with the offices of Democratic senators, including Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), in seeking to develop a global anti-money-laundering agenda as a central plank of US foreign policy.