In fact, I’m monolingual myself, even though my academic work was largely focused on international trade and finance.
In my defense, the great bulk of global economic research is published in English; and in general, Americans’ lack of language skills is less important than their insularity, their relative unfamiliarity with what happens and how things work in other nations.
Yet many Americans, even supposedly knowledgeable commentators, often seem unaware of both the ways other nations are similar to us and the ways they are different.
I’ll come back to that surprising fact, and what it tells us, in a minute.
First, let’s talk about some other international comparisons that seem relevant to the current situation.
Persons:
Biden
Locations:
United States