If you can receive the BBC 2, I would have recommened you to watch a program by Boris Johnson. The program is called; Boris and the dream of Rome and could be seen on Sunday evening. Could be because the last of the series was broadcasted tonight.
It is about the simmularities between the historical Rome and the European Union we are trying to build these days. The historical Rome unified an area larger than the current European Union and somehow they did it without a big army or many civil servants.
Of course the question he is trying to answer is; what can we learn from the Romans and is the European Union going to succeed or is it going the wrong way? It is fascinating to see how many problems which the Romans had are similar to the ones we have today.