Review of Donald Prater's Thomas Mann: A Life (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995).
Earlier this year, events provided a fitting commentary on the mixture of tragedy and farce that has been the history of the ill-starred attempt to create a European super-state. When the "Intergovernmental Conference" (IGC) convened at Turin on March 29, 1996, to revise the Treaty of Maastricht with a view to expanding the membership of the European Union, the main topic turned out to be "mad cow disease" (BSE) and its alleged link to Creutzfeld-Jacob disease (CJD).
A panic had spread across Europe after an apparent acceptance by the British government that such a link might exist and, in consequence, a decision was taken by the European Commission that Britain should not only be prohibited from exporting beef to Europe, but to anywhere else in the world. The assembled ministers were described by the British prime minister on his return as having agreed that the problem was a "European" one, and as having received a "notable measure of understanding and support." During the next few days, however, Britain's European partners demanded ever more stringent measures to destroy British cattle and refused to set a date for lifting the ban. Even the promise to bear part of the cost of the operation was shown to be less significant than at first thought--since the money would be recovered by cutting down on the British rebate of its dues to the Union, negotiated by Lady Thatcher to make up for the fact that the method by which the Community (later the Union) was financed was particularly ill-suited to Britain's circumstances.
