Can open society survive? Is Europe disintegrating? How to overcome the economic crisis? Will Europeans feel secure again?

In this lecture, Jan Zielonka will discuss his latest book Counter Revolution: Liberal Europe in Retreat, which is a bold attempt to make sense of the extraordinary events taking place in Europe today. It examines the counter-revolution developing in Europe, exploring its roots and implications.

The book takes the form of a series of heartfelt letters to the late European guru Ralf Dahrendorf. Several months after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Dahrendorf wrote a book fashioned on Edmund Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France. Like Burke, he chose to put his analysis in the form of a letter, reflecting on the implications of the turbulent period around 1989. Thirty years later, and faced with an equally turbulent period, Jan Zielonka asks: what next?

Jan Zielonka is Professor of European Politics and Ralf Dahrendorf Fellow, St Antony's College, University of Oxford.

Waltraud Schelkle is Associate Professor of Political Economy at the LSE European Institute. 

The LSE European Institute (@LSEEI) is a centre for research and graduate teaching on the processes of integration and fragmentation within Europe. In the most recent national Research Excellence Framework (REF 2014) the Institute was ranked first for research in its sector.

The Dahrendorf Forum (@DahrendorfForum) is a joint initiative between the LSE and the Hertie School of Governance, funded by Mercator Stiftung.

LSE IDEAS (@lseideas) is LSE's foreign policy think tank. We connect academic knowledge of diplomacy and strategy with the people who use it.