t r u t h o u t | There's No Place Like Europe: Steven Hill on Medical House Calls, Multiparty Politics, and Other American Fantasies

t r u t h o u t | There's No Place Like Europe: Steven Hill on Medical House Calls, Multiparty Politics, and Other American Fantasies

While Europe is far from immune to the economic decline and resource scarcity it faces along with the rest of the world, columnist and author Steven Hill maintains that the continent still leads the globe in building political infrastructures that foster a shared and sustainable prosperity. In his new book, "Europe's Promise: Why the European Way Is the Best Hope in an Insecure Age," Hill heaps plenty of praise on the EU, but when he was invited to address the European Commission during his 12-country, 20-city book tour in Europe this September, he interpreted the honor as an acknowledgment that the world's largest economy knows it still has work to do.

"They're realizing that they're not explaining well what they're doing and why to their own population, to Americans, to a global audience," Hill told Truthout. According to his analysis, that needs to change if we are to accomplish what he describes as the "defining task of the 21st century" - creating and equitably distributing wealth among the world's growing billions without destroying the planet in the process.