"Rethinking the region" is an extremely valuable contribution to the debate on the nature and role of the (sub-national) region in contemporary Europe. It challenges the idea that regions can be treated as homogenous,undifferentiated entities. The book recasts the region as an internally differentiated and rather arbitrary construct; what the authors call the discontinuous region. In the discontinuous region economic growth is rarely uniform. A region can contain both pockets of growth and areas of underdevelopment. In other words, differential growth patterns and distribution of wealth are not just experienced between regions, but within them too. The book draws attention to the complex (and often contradictory) economic processes that govern regional growth. Regional inequalities are viewed not as an unfortunate product of historical disadvantage or lack of opportunity, but as a structural consequence of neo-liberal growth. The main contribution of the book is to outline the ways in which neo-liberal growth creates pockets of disadvantage at the same time as it rewards economic advantage. Prosperity and disadvantage are thus two sides of the same coin. The conclusion drawn from this analysis is that neo-liberal growth can never "solve" the problem of regional inequalities. This has implications for regional policy both at the national and at EU level.

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