Hundreds of millions of people have seen Dallas worldwide. The article tells us how the ideology of the era was transmitted in the series. This era was characterised by the neo-conservative counter-revolution, the new round of the cold war, the weakening of community values, as well as the rise and fall of oil. At the end, the authors explain which of the two main heros carry greater level of morality.

A recent book by progressive economists provides a devastating critique of the idea of single market and monetary union in Europe. The authors, however, can also be criticised from an ecological point of view, for making too much concessions to grand infrastructural projects destroying the environment and local jobs. (A. Amin and J. Tomaney (eds): Behind the Myth of the European Union: Prospects for Cohesion. Routledge, London 1995)

The success of a play does not only depend on the efforts of actors and directors, but also whether the public sentiment is receptive to the ideas presented from the stage or not. Shaw's drama as well as Lerner's and Leowe's musical became successful in periods when emancipation was an the agenda – class and gender in Britain, and race and gender in the USA. Emancipation in any sense is far from the political concerns in Hungary, which explains why a recent attempt failed.

The historically high level of unemployment in Western Europe is the greatest challenge before economists and politicians. Most of the authors contributing to a book (Michie and Grieve Smith (eds): Unemployment in Europe. London, Academic. Press, 1994) urge radical reforms based on post-Keynesian considerations.

The governments led by the right of centre, nationalist József Antall and Péter Boross (1990-1994), produced a fragmented and unviable structure in Hungarian agriculture. This sector now represents a heavy burden on the government budget. It also makes more difficult to modernize other sectors of the economy, and also to integrate the Hungarian economy into the European Union. A major task is for the left to present an alternative in the agricultural sector.