No longer a land of intolerance.
The week's news at a glance.
United Kingdom
Ben MacIntyre
The Times
The English used to be world leaders in chauvinism, said Ben MacIntyre in the London Times. For centuries, we took it as beyond question that “Johnny Foreigner” deserved only “blanket disdain.” A Victorian-era travel book described the Portuguese as “indolent, just like the Spaniards,” and the Greeks as immature: “When they are unhappy, they scream like babies.” The Roman Catholicism of the Continent was dismissed as “a kind of Christian religion, but a very bad one.” These “sweepingly negative generalizations and racist stereotyping” came from one Mrs. Favell Lee Mortimer, an English travel writer who had never actually left England. These days, fortunately, that kind of ignorant prejudice is behind us. Affordable air travel allows us to “wander in vast droves” and see for ourselves that our foreign neighbors are not so bad after all. Certainly we still laugh at the Fawlty Towers sketch about Germans—“Don’t mention the war!”—but in an “ironical” way that finds the English more ridiculous than the Germans. And while Britons are “as likely as ever to complain that the French smell of garlic and the Germans have no jokes,” deep down we “know the stereotypes are not true.”
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
![https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg](https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516-320-80.jpg)
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
Create an account with the same email registered to your subscription to unlock access.
-
'Democrats now have a chance to present a vigorous, compelling case'
Instant Opinion Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
By Justin Klawans, The Week US Published
-
What has Kamala Harris done as vice president?
In Depth It's not uncommon for the second-in-command to struggle to prove themselves in a role largely defined by behind-the-scenes work
By Theara Coleman, The Week US Published
-
How Black organizations quickly pivoted and mobilized for Kamala Harris
In the spotlight Harris has a shot at being the first Black woman to lead the Democratic ticket
By Theara Coleman, The Week US Published