Royals? We don't need no stinkin' royals!

Why are Americans so obsessed with the British royalty? America fought a war to rid itself of "royal tyrants", not to uphold them.


"How does it come about that the British still employ the words "class" and "empire," while in the United States these are facts but  not concepts? How is it that the image of an English princess graces the cover of every American celebrity and sensation magazine? Why should it be that, as the rest of the world absorbs mass-produced American television output, the educated class in America itself prefers the diversion offered by the English country-house drama on its otherwise scantily financed Public Broadcasting System? Why is Winston Churchill the most quoted politician in American national life? Is it coincidence that, in repeated test of American style and taste,  the words "English" and "British" are synonymous with an elusive sense of the sophisticated? Is it of interest that the terms "East Coast", "Establishment", and "Anglophile", have been, at certain crucial points, effectively interchangeable?"

Christopher Hitchens

Blood Class and Empire: The Enduring Anglo-American Relationship


I have often wondered why Americans seemed so obsessed by Princess Diana.