Cinico: Travels With a Good Professor at the Time of the Scottish Referendum

With a professor of politics as his guide, a London-based Italian journalist traverses Scotland seeking a "big story" on the independence referendum. What he gets instead are small stories from myriad points of view: a Ukrainian nationalist, a Russian religious guru, an eccentric Estonian, an Algerian and a dying man, amongst others. Beyond exploring Scotland's political scene and its place in Europe, Cinico's stories examine how Europeans interpret each other as well as how people interrelate within a social context. Like Voltaire's Candide, Cinico starts with a mindset incapable of bringing him either understanding or contentment, but ends up with an awareness that, though insufficient for the elusive happiness we all seek, is sufficient enough for a perfectly acceptable human existence.