I think there's a lot of truth to this essay. As am American, I've certainly been guilty of these kinds of generalizations. To Americans (colloquially meaning

I think there's a lot of truth to this essay. As am American, I've certainly been guilty of these kinds of generalizations. To Americans (colloquially meaning U.S. citizens here), I think the phenomenon can be attributed mainly to two causes. The first is that Americans don't travel much, only a small minority hold passports. And who can travel with a meagre two contiguous weeks of holiday per year, and with real incomes of the 99% declining for the past 30 years? The second is that the political propaganda machine in the States explicitly lumps all the nations of Europe into the "un-American, thus wrong-thinking" category. You need look no further than our last presidential election for evidence of this: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-16583813 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-16583813 . There's probably a third force at work that just occurred to me: I think that in American schools, kids are not taught anything meaningful about Europe other than perhaps a vague bit about the World Wars. Namely who was "good", and who was "evil", black & white just like modern American politics. My apartment here in Berlin has a Berlin-raised caretaker who I've had a few extended conversations with. I'm astounded by how much he knows about American history, to the point of even forming opinions (historical ones, not politico-propaganda-influenced ones as far as I can tell) on individual events such as the battle of Little Bighorn. He's in his late 40s, speaks English fluently, and knows more about American history than most Americans I've met. I'm not sure that I entirely know what to make of this, but it certainly leaves me with the impression that there's an element of learning and sheer curiosity about the world that's largely absent in the States.