Special to EUobserver

“America,” wrote Hannah Arendt in 1954, “has been both the dream and the nightmare of Europe.”

The dream was the United States ability to inspire Europeans to rebuild a war-torn continent and embrace liberal democracy; the nightmare was the envy and fear generated by an America that possessed unprecedented economic and military clout.

In the decades since, Europeans have continued to project hopes and fears across the Atlantic, seeing at times a dynamic, optimistic America, while at other moments worrying deeply about the US as hegemon, the “hyperpower” that has too much influence on what happens worldwide.

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