Cultural Differences

In the early 1980s Christopher Hitchens moved from England to America for the first time, experiencing a cultural shift, as well as a boon in popularity, with the move. This move provided the perceptive Hitchens with many observations about England and America and the differences in media and culture between the two nations. On the subject of whether or not Americans are interested in British royalty, Hitchens responded by saying that Americans naturally have a sort of fascination with the type of government that they rejected, describing it as a love-hate relationship. When discussing the love of Princess Diana that Americans had during the 1980's, Hitchens said that it surprised him and that a person could generally see her face on magazine racks in supermarkets all throughout the U.S. In comparing the differences between the way that American and British media treat royalty, Hitchens noted that the American media are always praiseworthy and very one-dimensional in the way they write about the monarchy in comparison to their British counterparts.

Hitchens also found that American politicians often brought out justifications for their actions by comparing them to actions by former British leader Winston Churchill. When looking at the culture of religion that permeates throughout America, Hitchens stated

"How dismal is it to see present day Americans yearning for the very orthodoxy that their country was founded to escape"

When talking about the difference in religious and ethnic groups in England and America, Hitchens says that:

"Ethnic politics isn't considered to be a respectable way of carrying on in Britain in the same way that it is here. It's been simply more homogenous in points of religion and race until recently in the United States."