What Do Europeans Want?

As the cold cracked and the crocuses and daisies pushed up in Hyde Park and on the Palatine, I took a tour, courtesy of the United States Information Agency, of Rome, Paris, and London, with colleagues from The American Spectator, Commentary, The New Republic, and other ateliers of opinion. Most of what one swats up on such junkets is inevitably tidbitsized. But two themes kept reappearing, often enough to suggest generalizations.

Our opposite numbers—journalists, economists, political scientists—were for the most part conservative. More, they were conservative in ways that Americans can understand (no corporatists, or high Tories). The most striking impression one gets is how singular such people are.

About the Author

Richard Brookhiser

Historian Richard Brookhiser is a senior editor of National Review and a senior fellow at the National Review Institute.

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British Conservative Party

As the cold cracked and the crocuses and daisies pushed up in Hyde Park and on the Palatine, I took a tour, courtesy of the United States Information Agency, of Rome, Paris, and London, with colleagues from The American Spectator, Commentary, The New Republic, and other ateliers of opinion. Most of what one swats up on such junkets is inevitably tidbitsized. But two themes kept reappearing, often enough to suggest generalizations.

Our opposite numbers—journalists, economists, political scientists—were for the most part conservative. More, they were conservative in ways that Americans can understand (no corporatists, or high Tories). The most striking impression one gets is how singular such people are.