The Europe the New Deal Made

Could different forms of Western liberalism be at the root of recent tensions between the United States and Europe? This week's show featured the fourth in a series of programs on the current state of American-European relations, presented under the auspices of the Institute for Human Sciences at Boston University. Professor of Political Science and History at Columbia University, Ira Kaznelson, spoke on "The Europe The New Deal Made: Current Tensions In Historical Perspective."

Professor Katznelson made the case that America's New Deal shaped Western Europe in the aftermath of WWII, while America's own form of liberalism was changing. He argued that the Democrats' "Solid South" produced the New Deal that provided the form in which Europe was rebuilt but that the Republicans' "Shifting South" gave America a more conservative brand of liberalism from Reagan through Bush II.