A magisterial volume--a cocktail of autobiography, political analysis of the state of the world, and policy prescriptions. --Foreign Affairs For fifty years, the Americans, British, and Europeans were close partners, yet today the Western alliance is strained to a moment of reckoning. In Cousins and Strangers, Chris Patten, one of Europe's most distinguished statesmen, scrutinizes what has happened in the years since the fall of the Berlin Wall, pinpointing the shifts in power and security that have reshaped our world. In penetrating and sparkling analysis, Patten argues that to face the urgent threats of the twenty-first century--terrorism, nuclear proliferation, failed and failing states, massive environmental change--the Western alliance must stop bickering and kowtowing and start asserting cooperative leadership. Bad habits and easy, self-absorbed slogans must give way to smart politics in order to ensure the world's, and our own, best interests. Drawing on his decades of experience in government and international diplomacy, Patten sharply assesses the leadership of the United States, Great Britain, and Europe, and the stakes for all three if the West breaks apart.