Concisely written and compelling, this book offers a provocative look at European-American relations. It focuses on the tradition of common political ideas, the original roots of common European and American thought, the decision by the two continents not to develop in isolation from one another, and the traditional ambivalence of the European caught indecisively between reliance upon and distance from the United States. From classical antiquity to contemporary society, Mathiopoulos unfolds the paradoxical relationship between the U.S. and Europe--the simultaneous occurrence of reciprocal...