The Good European Arguments, Excursions and Disquisitions on the Theme of Europe

Thrown into a deep identity crisis by Bismarck's victories against the French in 1870, Alsace's divided loyalties have affected the nature of Europe itself. In this authoritative new discussion, Iain Bamforth reports from fifteen years of travel, taking him from Berlin when the wall fell in 1989 to Strasburg, heart of aboriginal Europe. With his ear attuned to the complexities of culture and politics, Bamforth attempts to discover Europe through extra-diplomatic channels, offering essays on writers and thinkers who have done much to define the small archipelago on the edge of Asia. Included are classics such as Kleist, Kafka, and WG Sebald, as well as more offbeat characters such as Alsatian humorist Tomi Ungerer.

Iain Bamforth was born in 1959 into a Plymouth Brethren family and grew up in Glasgow, where he attended the university. He is a doctor and scientific translator. He now lives and runs his own practice in Strasbourg, and contributes regularly to a number of periodicals including PN Review, Times Literary Supplement and New York Times Book Review. Sons and Pioneers received a Scottish Arts Council Book Award in 1992. In addition to his previous books of poetry with Carcanet, Sons and Pioneers and Open Workings, Verso publish his literary history of medicine The Body in the Library, to be joined in 2005 by a book of essays on medicine and modernity.