'It is time', writes Robert Kagan, 'to stop pretendng that Europeans and Americans share a common view of the world, or even that they occupy the same world.'

With that snappy intro, Kagan embarks on an essay that has already created a new political category. Kaganism is the doctrine that the Atlantic Ocean is much wider than we realise. History has led to a fundamental cultural and ideolos"zi cal division: the success of the European Union in halting