Painted In Blood: Understanding Europeans
A mélange of familiar generalities about "the European" and his psyche, defined essentially by his being different from "the American." The book, with a healthy American bias, is enriched by some telling quotes and enlivened by the apt anecdote, cleverly gathered by an American ex-academic during his many years in Europe. Miller rather relishes his freedom from disciplinary constraints. Inter alia, Europeans are depicted as reserved, secretive, rooted, distrustful, deeply formed by history. Pleasant, facile, suggestive.
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Radical Islam is spreading across Europe among descendants of Muslim immigrants. Disenfranchised and disillusioned by the failure of integration, some European Muslims have taken up jihad against the West. They are dangerous and committed -- and can enter the United States without a visa.
An investigation into Polish atrocities against Jews during World War II has prompted a divisive, painful debate about antisemitism and what it means to be Polish. In rectifying one chapter of the historical record, the new research has magnified the heritage that still holds Poland back from becoming a truly pluralistic democracy.
In his article "Europe's Angry Muslims" (July/August 2005), Robert Leiken argues that European Muslims are "distinct, cohesive, and bitter." He later writes that Islamist terrorist groups should not be compared with marginal European terrorist groups because Islamist terrorists have a "social base" from which to operate. The implied claim that all European Muslims are or could be supporters of terrorists (if they are not terrorists themselves) needs to be answered.
