Europe is not a museum. It is blurring with Africa and Asia, and not only demographically. Europe has never, as our maps imagine, truly been a place apart from other continents. The common destiny that Europeans share has been shaped over the past decade by events outside its borders and outside its control: from the Syrian War that sent millions north-westwards, to the tangled crisis of development, climate and expectations affecting Africa which has seen millions more start to move towards the same destination. This is as epochal a change as any in our history, and forces us to ask fundamental questions about what Europe is today.
Over the past five years, reporting for my new book This Is Europe, I found myself a witness to this blurring. The Italian philosopher Lorenzo Marsili once called Europe a laboratory of the human future. As the 2010s gave way to the 2020s, I felt as if I was watching that future arrive. In Burgundy, eastern France, vines were being harvested a full month out of their centuries-long cycles. In Russia, gas workers watched herds of reindeer drop dead from climate change as they drilled ever deeper. And in countless love affairs and family stories, the very fabric of chance and encounter has been remade by apps.
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