Free Republic

If John Steinbeck were alive today and had yet to pen "The Grapes of Wrath," it's not too hard to imagine the novelist telling the story of a family making its departure from California. Released 70 years ago today, Steinbeck's novel of the Great Depression told of the hardships endured by the Joads, an Oklahoma family that braved Route 66 in an ultimately fruitless search for prosperity in the Central Valley. Steinbeck's novel isn't the only story of those who have moved to California. Students learn of the Spanish missions and the Gold Rush. The nostalgia of Route 66 is...

In the first of a series of five articles on Europe Stephen Mulvey looks at the long-term prospects for EU enlargement. The European Union has taken off and is flying east without a clear idea of where or when it is going to land. It is rapidly approaching the borderlands of the old USSR, where it will touch down next year to refuel. It will then glide into the Balkans in 2007, and in theory it could land in Turkey 10 years from now, giving "Europe" a border with Iraq. But that might not be the limit. Belarus, Moldova and...