NONFICTION - March 31, 1991

EUROQUAKE: Europe’s Explosive Economic Challenge Will Change the World by Daniel Burstein (Simon and Schuster: $22.95; 363 pp.) Despite the melodramatic titles concocted to sell his books--this one quakes and explodes; his last featured an exclamation point and portentous words like “threat”--journalist Daniel Burstein is one of our most sober-minded writers on the “new world order.” Not one to be seduced by the latest buzzwords, he realizes that the mere popularity of American burgers and fries abroad does not ensure that we will lead the new order. Pointing out weaknesses in our economy, such as the lack of long-term planning and intercooperative research (which led to the recent failure of one of America’s only two supercomputer companies), Burstein suggests that the future belongs to the German model of capitalism. Still, he is optimistic that we can regain our competitive edge in the ‘90s, for Germany will be preoccupied with modernizing its eastern sector, while Japan will be hobbled by mercantilist, adversarial trading policies that have become anachronistic in the “borderless world.”