When I left for London in the fall of 2003 to take a research position at the House of Commons, the "Anglo-American relationship" was a favorite topic for commentary and adulation in America. The diplomatic discourse before the invasion of Iraq had fortified an already laudatory view among Americans of their British brethren as loyal allies in the face of international opposition. After a pre-war summit with President Bush, Tony Blair said of US-UK relations, "the key thing is that we have shared values and a shared determination to deal with the issue of weapons of mass destruction." Since the latter of these never materialized, however, I am disposed to wonder if the former has any solid basis in reality either, or whether it isn't just as much whimsical political thinking. Indeed, living and working through what was truly a very anti-American year in London made me question the use of "Anglo-American" as an appropriate adjective not just for "values" but for any word other than perhaps "invasion." As Jane Walmsley, author of Brit-Think, Ameri-Think: A Transatlantic Surivial Guide, writes, "the longer I stay [in Britain,] the more aware I become that we are very different peoples grown far apart since 1776. I submit that the so-called special relationship is now one part history and one part wishful thinking."

Most Americans, whether through willed ignorance or circumstantial insularity, can get along just fine with a completely superficial knowledge of British society. I call it the Masterpiece Theatre Mentality: viewing Britain as basically a more polite, formal, and classy version of us, Uncle Sam with a top hat and cane. I've seen it many times in London: American tourists cooing reverentially whenever they hear a vaguely British accent, going on about how "sophisticated‚" it sounds‚even when it is the British equivalent of an Arkansas drawl.

Yet the British don't have the luxury of a cursory acquaintance with us, for American global policies and culture‚ from Iraq to iPods‚ are ineluctable. When I travel abroad I am always unsettled by the worldwide obsession with America, the fact that US politics are discussed more often on the streets of London than in the cafés of Pittsburgh. Since they know us better than we know them, I tend to trust the British assessment of us rather than our rather cloying tea-and-crumpets conception of us, and their stance is not exactly one of reciprocal admiration or fraternal embrace. To be sure, Britain today is probably the most virulently (if not statistically) anti-American nation in Europe.

In the country that is popularly supposed to hold that title, France (where I have also lived,) anti-Americanism seems most often an inward-looking critique of French culture rather than any sweeping statement about external reality. As Adam Gopnik observed that summer in The New Yorker, "What is striking, in Paris this year is the absence of anti-Americanism‚ of a lucid, coherent, tightly argued alternative to American unilateralism that is neither emptily rhetorical nor mere daydreaming." In fact, it is easier to find this kind of argument in Britain than in France. Of all the self-described "anti-Americans‚" I have encountered abroad, the British ones have certainly been the most acrimonious.

I shall never forget George Bush's visit to London that fall. Out the window of my office beneath Big Ben, I had a front-row view of the more than 100,000 angry protestors who marched past Parliament on their way to a huge anti-American rally in Trafalgar Square, which I observed later that evening. While most anti-Bush sentiment (which I share) must be decoupled from proper anti-Americanism (which I don't), the many defaced US flags and the hateful slogans that I encountered that day were about more than our current president. In that year, I often found myself in conversations with Britons who proudly called themselves "anti-American," and I have been blamed because of my nationality for everything from global warming to increasing rates of obesity in the UK. I'm not alone in this observation; the American author Eric Schlosser noted that October in The Guardian, "I can't remember another time when having an American accent provoked as much immediate hostility from Brits."

Britons clearly appreciate the profound political and cultural chasm between our two nations, even though most Americans are oblivious to it. That Britain and America are two nations separated by a common language is true, but not in the sense that that cliché is usually employed. Our mutual intelligibility creates a sense of commonality that is, I think, largely illusory. Let us not forget that nearly every political value and aspiration of our nation's founding grew directly out of the Founders' abhorrence of the English political system—a system which endures largely intact today as it was in 1776. The essentially libertarian philosophy in which the US Constitution was framed has endured in American culture, even if many Americans aren't explicitly aware of where those values come from: whether on the Left or Right, we are suspicious of government intrusions into our lives and are (or at least used to be) loath to accept imperialist expansion abroad. By contrast, the notion of government as a shepherding, omnipotent parent remains quite acceptable to British political sensibilities. This is the cultural legacy of aristocratic rule, deference to a supposedly benevolent Big Brother. The difference in the way our two cultures understand the roles of government and social hierarchy is certainly not the only thing that divides us, but it is for me the most telling.

The British Big Brother mindset is probably most evident on the London Underground. To understand this, you must realize the Orwellian nightmare that is contemporary London life: it is quite possible for a Londoner to be on camera, watched and recorded by government and corporations, from the moment he walks out his door in the morning until the moment he returns at night. Cameras abound, on street corners and lamp posts and trees, in shops, on the subway trains, and, yes, even in some bathrooms. Some of the more discomfiting cameras are even remote controlled, following you as you walk. In the subway, this presence is unusually acute. It is not a solely passive surveillance either. I once heard an announcement in a monotone male voice reverberate for all to hear on the station-wide loud speakers: "this is for the man in the yellow shirt carrying a boy on his shoulders down the escalator. What you are doing is dangerous and you should stop. Thank you." One hesitates to pick one's nose. Another announcement I heard: "the beggar at the bottom of the stairs is a known drug user; do not give him money because he will only use it to buy drugs." Now, you might argue that there were legitimate reasons for both of those very public acts of humiliation, but I suspect in America we would just leave well enough alone. A former teacher of mine used to wear a button saying "I'm not your mother," and I think that fairly well sums up the American approach to other people's ill-advised behavior. Not so, the British. Consider the enormous "Smoking Kills" label that almost completely covers British cigarette boxes, dwarfing our relatively small and less assertive "warnings," or the recent proposals to institute a tax on high-fat foods to keep Britons thin, to say nothing of the exorbitant income tax rates and 17.5% sales tax which bolster all this governmental hubris.

However, the most striking differences between US and UK politics are the formal ones. The United Kingdom is still just that: a kingdom. The British monarch, head of the official state church, has far more actual power than any of her European counterparts; she can even select the Prime Minister in the absence of a clear Parliamentary majority. The Prime Minister holds Royal Prerogative powers, which are formally delegated to him by the Queen, including the power to make war without consulting anyone. (The military and cabinet swear allegiance to the Queen, not to the British people or Parliament.) Because of these powers and because discipline within parties is very strictly enforced, the leader of the Parliamentary majority (the Prime Minister) holds nearly the absolute power that the monarch once enjoyed, making Britain effectively an unchecked dictatorship between elections. Britain has no significant checks and balances, and no equivalent of our Supreme Court since there is no written constitution to be interpreted. All is done in the name of the monarch, just it has been for over a millennium, lending a wash of mystical legitimacy to political initiatives (all bills receive "Royal Assent" before becoming law.) The aristocracy endures, with hereditary Dukes, Earls, and Barons holding state-recognized titles, which divide society into fundamentally different categories. The ancient aristocratic estates own the majority of land in Britain, which is why it is difficult to own land there; it is merely leased for 99 years from the local lord.

Though I am very fond of Britain, I am completely baffled why most Americans should assume that this (frankly, rather medieval) political culture should have any "shared values" with our own modern democratic-republican (lower case "d" and "r") political culture, which in fact more closely resembles that of France. Some have used Iraq to establish a dichotomy, with the US and UK (among others) on one side and "old Europe" (France and Germany) on the other. This is not only diplomatically counterproductive but proceeds from a false premise. We should appreciate Britain for what it is: a culturally distinct nation with a proud history. We should not admire Britain for something it is not: just a slightly more "European" version of America.