ABSTRACT
World War II and the outset of the cold war not only changed the idea of “the West,” but they also laid the material and cultural foundations for a gradual and almost seamless change in what that ancient and noble term meant and evoked.1 In this respect, the notion of “Atlantic community” refl ected a cultural and linguistic transition, that is, a process by which old terms and shared concepts began to be used to describe or explain a new reality to the point of changing their meanings.
