Europe and The United States   by Richard C. Remy, Ph.D. Faculty Associate in Political Science The Mershon Center for International Security and Public Policy Associate Professor in the College of Education The Ohio State University   The United States has always had a special relationship with Europe. We, of course, owe much of our constitutional heritage to the ideas of the European Enlightenment. Economically, Europe has always been a critically important trading partner. And from the earliest days of our history to today’s headlines, immigrants from Western and Eastern Europe have greatly enriched American life in every conceivable way. The list of names seems endless: Andrew Carnegie, Albert Einstein, Henry Kissinger, Levi Strauss, General John Shalikashvilli, and they are only a few of the European immigrants who went on to make significant contributions to their adopted homeland.   At the same time, European politics and history have cost the United States dearly. America’s involvement in two World Wars that began in Europe cost thousands of American lives. Communism, emanating from the ideas of a European sociologist, led to the cold war. This contest, pitting the United States against the Soviet Union with much of the “battleground” centering around Eastern Europe, cost America untold billions of dollars and in many ways dominated American priorities for nearly half of the twentieth century.   Dramatic, sometimes startling, change has been the hallmark of both modern European history and America’s role in Europe. I became personally involved in recent changes when in early 1991 the Polish Ministry of Education asked me to work with Polish educators, schools, and universities to help them develop new programs on civic education for democracy. The overthrow of Communist regimes in Poland and other nations of Central and Eastern Europe posed an unprecedented challenge and opportunity for civic educators. The long night of Communist despotism in Eastern Europe had left an imposing array of obstacles including the lack of classroom instructional materials, teachers with little or no understanding of democracy, and teacher educators who were themselves ill-prepared to teach about self-government. Thanks to the courage and hard work of educators in Poland as well as other countries in the region, significant progress is now being made in civic education, although much remains to be done. This issue of Current Events Update details some of the ongoing changes that could impact the futures of Americans and Europeans alike.