Hi everyone and welcome to this latest installment of the Eukis Itel podcast. Before I introduce our guests,

let me just alert you to the fact that next week we've got a special on this podcast,

which is our discussion of the results of the by-elections.

But without further ado, let me say our guest this week is Ben Judah.

Ben's British-French author and journalist, he's the author of three acclaimed books, Fragile Empire,

which is a book about Russia and Vladimir Putin.

This is London in 2016. And his latest book,

which I'm holding up, even though you can't see it, is this is Europe, the way we live now.

Ben, welcome. Thank you so much for having me.

Actually, I should also mention the fact that Ben is a think tanker and director of the Transform Europe Initiative at the Atlantic Council.

There we go.

That's all your biography there.

Now, let's talk about the book if we can start with that.

I mean, it's an amazingly rich and complex book.

I mean, let's just start with this.

Give us an abstract.

Just describe to our listeners what the book is and what it does.

Well, the person attempt to write a book about modern Europe. It's an attempt to put a continent into a book and also to break very consciously with a lot of

traditional travel writing and Europe writing.

So what I decided to do was not to have me as a journalist narrator, sort of

wandering around Europe, telling you what I think and introducing you to people and politicians,

and to have each chapter written as closely as possible from the point of view of one of the

...