The Futures of European Capitalism. By Vivien A. Schmidt. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002. 376p. $18.95.

This is a multilevel book that deals with a multilayered topic. It operates on three levels, the national, the European, and the global, and has three distinct (albeit related) objectives. The first objective is to chart the courses that the three main types of European capitalism (liberal, state, and managed) have taken since the 1970s, and then to detail the pressures that have pushed these “national capitalisms” along these different paths. The second objective is to bring the European Union back into discussions of the European political economy. This may seem a surprising objective given the vast amount of ink spilled on the EU in general, but Vivien Schmidt attempts to disaggregate the effects of “Europeanization” from those of “Globalization” and thus give a more nuanced account of the pressures facing European states. The third objective is to “bring discourse back in,” thereby giving greater analytic specificity to our understandings of institutional change and economic adjustment. This is a big and bold book.