As we said, it is four-field. For eons Europe was a sideshow to world events cold, wet, fragmented by mountains, vast forests, great rivers. Europe has a romance with blood, ties to the land. Those who lack this incipient tie to the land, and who are different, should be excised from the land. I would like to suggest that the current fascination with diaspora is a European theme rather than an American theme.
Migration is a given in American myths of identity.
American anthropology of Europe has tended to focus less on race and place and more on understanding centers of power that generate identities. The state is being constructed differently today than in the past. To me the real index of a common European language will be the emergence of the Great European Novel, like the emergence of the concept of the Great American Novel after America s Civil War. And finally, the fourth leg of our American elephant, the cultural perspective. Some have argued that American anthropology is becoming bogged down in cultural studies and postmodern solipsism.