Travelling

Traveling in the mind's eye, through reading and, more recently, through electronic media, is a European habit of long-standing. Ever since the age of discoveries in the Renaissance, Europeans have been interested in reports of life in faraway places. Of all the places in which Europeans were interested, America has received more attention than others for a variety of reasons, the most important of which is that many Europeans themselves emigrated there. The report about America from the person who has been there is a literary genre that Europeans have devoured. As Europeans watched the United States grow from a British colony to one of the dominant nations of the world, a pattern of conversation developed among them about the meaning of this emerging Colossus of the New World. There emerged a question, and stated by Richard Rose: Is America inevitable or inimitable? The question is easier to ask than to answer and both sides of the question are amply represented in American and European writing about America. The one stresses the uniqueness of America, that no nation or people can be compared with the experience of Americans. The other stresses that America is the forerunner of what European, even world. society will be tomorrow.