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When I was growing up, Masterpiece Theater was standard Sunday-night fare on our 13-inch color Zenith.  We also watched Monty Python and Mystery.  It is not that we never watched American programs, but we believed that Brits had it all over us when it came to television.  You can imagine my surprise when my family visited London in 1978.  The rage over there was a brand new show called Dallas, and the girl behind the front desk at our hotel was nonplussed on learning I had never seen an episode.  I later understood that European enthusiasm for American pop culture becomes full-blown fascination when the topic is even remotely associated with the American West.  Over the years, I’ve met Europeans who, while praising John Ford films, argue that the brutal life of America’s inner cities is a legacy of our “lawless frontier.”

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