ABSTRACT
This chapter shows that Europe's freedom of choice has been destroyed neither by the advent of industrial society nor by the evolution of world affairs. It is an attempt to explore the Europe's relationship with the United States. Since 1945 it has been one of double dependence, internal and external. The internal dimension of dependence has been called "Americanization." European societies have been transformed by the eruption of the age of mass consumption. Of course other terms, such as modernization or industrialization, could be used; but "Americanization" for several reasons applies. It was the United States which preached the gospel of prosperity and which goaded the Europeans into creating the institutions that would usher in the new age. The "Americanization" of Western Europe is not a mere cliche. It is a fact recently documented by Daedalus.
