Europe took a special lead, though. After the war — quickly — it redesigned its societies to be places of equality, opportunity, and fairness. It understood that poverty had caused its ruin, opening the Pandora’s box of extremism, racism, hate, fascism. And so it quickly gave all its people — at least richer European countries — exactly all those things you thought of when I asked you “what do you think of when you think of a modern place?” Public healthcare, transport, media, finance, housing, safety nets, and so on. The time, money, and freedom to live with dignity. As a simple example, Britain’s NHS was one of the world’s first public healthcare system — created in 1948. Europe was trying to create a place where everyone had the bare minimum of a decent life — so war would never again recur. This was the birth of a truly modern society. It was a European creation — though in a way, I suppose, America lent military might. But the ideas, the will, the innovations — all these were European.