Scientists who cooperated in producing this volume wrote on topics important to the European society nowadays and in the past. The result is an interesting insight into a number of diverse issues, ranging from the problems national parliaments in the European Union are facing, with case studies from Central and Eastern Europe, to the way the EU uses the possibilities opened up by information technologies in building a better communication with the citizens of the member states. Further topics are the relations between the EU and the Republic of China, the work of the British envoy in Poland...