This is a long read. But well worth it. Americans and non-Americans should all read this...

God Bless America..

I moved from the U.S. to Europe in 1998, and I鈥檝e been drawing comparisons ever since. Living in turn in the Netherlands, where kids come out of high school able to speak four languages, where gay marriage is a non-issue, and where book-buying levels are the world鈥檚 highest, and in Norway, where a staggering percentage of people read three newspapers a day and where respect for learning is reflected even in Oslo place names (鈥淧rofessor Aschehoug Square鈥? 鈥淧rofessor Birkeland Road鈥?, I was tempted at one point to write a book lamenting Americans鈥?anti-intellectualism鈥攖heir indifference to foreign languages, ignorance of history, indifference to academic achievement, susceptibility to vulgar religion and trash TV, and so forth. On point after point, I would argue, Europe had us beat.

Yet as my weeks in the Old World stretched into months and then years, my perceptions shifted. Yes, many Europeans were book lovers鈥攂ut which country鈥檚 literature most engaged them? Many of them revered education鈥攂ut to which country鈥檚 universities did they most wish to send their children? (Answer: the same country that performs the majority of the world鈥檚 scientific research and wins most of the Nobel Prizes.) Yes, American television was responsible for drivel like 鈥淭he Ricki Lake Show鈥濃€攂ut Europeans, I learned, watched this stuff just as eagerly as Americans did (only to turn around, of course, and mock it as a reflection of American boorishness). No, Europeans weren鈥檛 Bible-thumpers鈥攂ut the Continent鈥檚 ever-growing Muslim population, I had come to realize, represented even more of a threat to pluralist democracy than fundamentalist Christians did in the U.S. And yes, more Europeans were multilingual鈥攂ut then, if each of the fifty states had its own language, Americans would be multilingual, too.1 I鈥檇 marveled at Norwegians鈥?newspaper consumption; but what did they actually read in those newspapers?