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Wanted: more European brainpower

Friday, 29th February 2008

Why are America's think-tanks so much weightier than their counterparts on this side of the water? Why do US journalists seem more willing to think big? James Harkin, author of a new book on the subject, worries that the old continent is lagging behind:

Assaulted by this battery of sometimes flaky new ideas, it would be easy for European thinkers to sit back and sniff. Some of it is mere gimmickry – zappy headline titles that seem to capture the essence of a complicated idea while intriguing the reader enough to read more. Unlike many European philosophers and social scientists, however, the new idea-makers lack verbosity or obscurantism and do not retreat into jargon. A country that controls the market for ideas, remember, has its levers on a great deal else besides. Europeans thinkers, who were so formidable at producing practical ideas during the age of ideology, need to think about catching up.

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