Please note that the content of this book primarily consists of articles
available from Wikipedia or other free sources online. The 27th G8
summit took place in Genoa, Italy, in July 2001. The Group of Seven (G7)
was an unofficial forum which brought together the heads of the richest
industrialized countries: France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United
Kingdom, the United States and Canada starting in 1976. The G8, meeting
for the first time in 1997, was formed with the addition of Russia. In
addition, the President of the European Commission has been formally
included in summits since 1981. The summits were not meant to be linked
formally with wider international institutions; and in fact, a mild
rebellion against the stiff formality of other international meetings
was a part of the genesis of cooperation between France's President
Giscard d'Estaing and Germany's Chancellor Helmut Schmidt as they
conceived the initial summit of the Group of Six (G6) in 1975. The G8
summits during the twenty-first century have inspired widespread
debates, protests and demonstrations; and the two- or three-day event
becomes more than the sum of its parts, elevating the participants, the
issues and the venue as focal points for activist pressure.
