Mark Mazower, a British historian at Columbia University, New York, presents his work as a stocktaking: a chance, just as the West is seeing power shift to emerging giants in the East, to ponder how Europeans and Americans crafted the present web of international institutions, from the UN to the World Bank or International Monetary Fund.

ECONOMIST: How world institutions were built

Even in its present muscular mood, even with its present unchallenged power, an America that is asked to do the impossible, or which promises it, is bound to disappoint.

ECONOMIST: Bali, Iraq and now a nuclear North Korea

In short, when considering there are currently no nuclear reactors in Italy, we firmly believe the answer to whether this will impact the current policy discussion in Italy is no as there is no nuclear power in Italy at present (Italy decommissioned its last nuclear plant in 1989).

FORBES: Japan's Nuclear Woes Won't Help The Solar Sector, Analyst Says

An intellectual argument says that it would be a bad thing anyway, because the present concentration of power (and therefore accountability) in a single elected chamber is an acknowledged strength of Britain's governing arrangements.

ECONOMIST: Elect the Lords