Orin Judd links to a long piece by Bruce Bowers in the Hudson review about European/American relations based upon experiences in Europe. It’s well worth the time to read.
One of the crucial differences between Europe and America is that Europe is full of people who decided to stay and America is full of people (and their descendants) who decided to leave. You can almost imagine a diffusion process where on one side of the Atlantic you have the least volatile people and on the other the most. I suppose it isn’t a surprise then that Europe has increasingly looked to comfort and security while American continues to look to opportunity and success. In a sense on of the problems with Europe really is America — it’s attracted the strivers and the boat rockers that Europe needs. That outflow of people has been interrupted for sixty years from the old Eastern bloc countries — another difference between our old allies and our new ones.
