Citizenship, Nationhood and Multiculturalism: European Dreams and the American Dream

Abstract

Abstract For well-nigh two centuries Europe and the United States have been each other ́s ‘significant Other’. They have each served as a reference culture to the other, leading to questions concerning the ‘Europeanization’ of America, or, with particular urgency in the 20th century, ‘the Americanization of Europe’. Yet, whatever the cultural interchanges and encounters across the Atlantic, the United States and Europe, particularly in the days of the European Union, have separately shown inner strains and problems, to do with immigration, ethnicity, and multiculturalism. This paper explores parallels and divergences in the way both the U.S. and Europe cope with these issues.

Keywords

• America
• Eurabia
• Islamism
• Europe
• Multiculturalism