TODI, Italy — From the window of a farmhouse, high on an Umbrian hill, a summer visitor is entranced by the view of a gentle landscape punctuated with olive and cypress trees, grape vines, lavender and thyme. In the middle distance, Todi, a medieval Italian town frozen in time, invites the contemplation of history.

Visitors like me were once ridiculed as Ugly Americans. In my student days, Europe was forever reminding us that the United States was young, immature and inexperience ...

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