Marshall Plan In the spring of 1947, the atmosphere in Europe was unstable and tense. World War II left behind misery, unemployment and a housing crisis. The cold weather intensified the severe economic and social dislocation that plagued the continent following the long and destructive war. At t...

The Semiotics of Utopianism National Lampoon's European Vacation(1985),though almost certainly produced as "pure entertainment" in Richard Dyer's sense of the term, presents to the careful reader much more than simply ninety-five minutes of farce. Underlying nearly every scene and every...