Citizens’ Band (CB) radios, walkie-talkies, ham radios and two tin cans with a rope between the two — these are the almost primitive communication devices once held in high regard. Communicative lingo of the past included “breaker breaker,” “over and out,” “that’s a big ten/four,” “what’s your handle buddy?” and “roger that.”

In the early 2000s, Europe appeared to be on the cusp of a new age of economic and political inter-cooperation with the advent of the European Union (EU). Many around the globe hailed this semi-utopian loose association of regional states as a first step towards the future development of a world government to replace the aging and often ineffectual association of the United Nations. The end of the Cold War and the collapse of the old Soviet empire had underlined for Europeans how deeply that ideological conflict had shaped their mutual destinies throughout much of the 20th century, be they east or west. From out of that maelstrom came the first whispers of the EU, and the rest, as they say, is history.