This book seeks to rectify Americans' views of its closest ally, Europe--an ambitious task, but one sorely lacking in the literature. Many prejudices about Europe surface in headlines, while others remain latent, but they are real, pervasive and ingrained.

By addressing the ordinary citizen in an easy to read, jargon free, factual and non-ideological text, my hope is to begin this process of correcting Americans' often outrageous, yet widely held and perpetuated beliefs about Europe. If the dominant media outlets actually reported the facts about Europe and America's relationship with its European allies, and if the average American knew the importance of Europe to their own, and our global, well-being, this book would be unnecessary.

However, this is not the case, making it imperative to address the prevalent and pervasive distortions, misperceptions and even flat-out lies about Europe, European policies, societies, and people. Myths and distortions can be directly harmful to our economy, security, and quality of life. Citizens support policy initiatives, vote, invest, shop and travel. In all of these areas Europe is our most important ally, trading partner, and source of foreign investment. Decisions taken in any of these areas, if based on myths and misperceptions, can have dire consequences for the average citizen. The current economic crisis, domestic reform proposals, and America's increasing realization of its relative decline--and increased need to cooperate with others--makes a book explaining the truth about our closest ally imperative.

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