Before The Economist magazine became the in-house journal for the woke business elite, it printed a fascinating article entitled “The burden of history” about how the past is viewed in the different countries of the European Union.

The piece began by quoting Javier Solana, then the EU’s foreign policy spokesperson who talked about how Americans and Europeans each interpret the exact same two words: “Ponder the phrase ‘that’s history’, and what it implies on either side of the Atlantic. When Americans say something is ‘history’, they mean it is no longer relevant… When Europeans say the same thing, ‘they usually mean the opposite’.”