There's a certain kind of clarity of thought you get when high above the ground in a helicopter, or at least that's how it seemed to me that morning I was traveling above Brazil's lush Costa Verde between Rio and Sao Paolo.

Inspired by the striking beauty of the coastline and jungle, I wondered to myself about what really sets apart the New World from Europe.

European friends and family had been telling me with increasing frequency that they no longer understood the United States, if indeed they had ever understood it. Then, it struck me: Europeans find much that is familiar to them in the Americas — and this is part of the problem.

New and different

In particular, they fail to appreciate that the two largest countries — the United States and Brazil — are not mere extensions of European civilization, but have taken familiar old-world ingredients, added fresh ones from elsewhere, and "baked" them into something new and different.

Europeans can be forgiven for expecting to find a modernity similar to their own in the United States. Part of the confusion is due to the fact that the Europeans — with an almost mythological zeal — have always regarded the United States as the “new world,” while in fact it may be the “old” one.

The new old world

As Lucinda Lambton's fascinating book "New Old World" points out, many old European habits, dialects, folkways and institutions still live on in the United States — long after

having been obliterated and forgotten in their countries of origin. It is also true that English common law and British constitutional theory remain vital and influential in Washington, D.C., but not on the European continent itself. Similarly, echoes of Lisbon and Coimbra — Portugal's Sorbonne — can be found in Brazil without difficulty.

Yet, despite these tradition-bound linkages, both Brazil and the United States are set apart from Europe in similar ways. The real surprise is in how much this applies to both the United States and Brazil — which are otherwise understood as being very different countries.

Diverse lands and people

Both have fused together diverse European and non-European elements and worked to develop seemingly endless hinterlands, some of which remain raw frontiers even today.

Both have struggled with the legacy of slavery — and, in the process, created new cultures substantially more exuberant, freewheeling and (at times) chaotic than anything one would find in Europe. Furthermore, despite their starkly different levels of development, the United States and Brazil have long recognized the impulses they share.

Founding similarities

That process of seeing themselves as very distinct from their respective European roots and linkages begins with America's sense of Manifest Destiny and Brazil's own brand of unlimited possibility — as the Country of Tomorrow (even if unkind wags say it always will be).

In their own ways, and shaped in different time periods, Brasilia and Washington, D.C. are both artificial capital cities. More importantly, they are both based on related interpretations of Enlightenment, utopian urban design principles thought suitable for great republics (with warm, humid climates for which air-conditioning was a godsend).

The popular music of both countries has long moved to soul-stirring African-influenced beats, with Jazz and Bossa Nova being closely related. Or, in the field of popular literature, take Riccardo Orizio's unusual travelogue work "Lost White Tribes" which, among other exotic groups, covers the present-day life in Brazil of descendants of American Confederates, who, having lost the war, decided that Dixie could live on — in Portuguese.

Vestiges of old

Crimes of passion and frontier frictions have been common in both countries, as is a certain warmth and hospitality. Visit a Brazilian embassy anywhere, and you will see garlands of tobacco and coffee plants on the State Arms displayed on the building. These symbols are vestiges of a planter culture not unfamiliar to Americans.

If Europeans, for their part, are more forgiving of the violent crime statistics associated with a poorer Brazil, they are quick to deplore the relatively high levels seen in the United States, which is admittedly not one of America's most attractive features. For some Europeans, it's another reason to dislike the Bush Administration and all it stands for, even when the problem and its related cultural and constitutional issues really require a deeper examination.

Glorifying guns

In contrast to old Europe, where in some countries only noblemen were allowed to bear personal arms and where today gun ownership is highly restricted, the young American Republic enshrined the right of all citizens to own guns — and encouraged them to do so.

Historical research shows, however, that privately-owned firearms remained both rare and expensive until the Civil War era, when mass industrial production of cheap rifles and pistols made them widely available in the millions.

Perhaps as a result of all this, the settlement of the American West to the Pacific was wild and dangerous at times, in contrast to the order and decorum enforced north of the border by red tunic-clad constables of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

Later, in the early 20th century, the bravado of American gangsters was romanticized in book and film around the world, and in the Second World War, Swedish-made Bofors anti-aircraft guns were jocularly dubbed "Chicago Pianos" by British sailors in homage of such gritty desperadoes as Al Capone.

Simply exaggerated?

No wonder that, at times, Europeans don't know whether to find the American gun and crime story alluring, repellent — or simply exaggerated.

But it was in Canada that I found a very different set of characteristics and parallels, beginning with that famed police force that is arguably the main national symbol for a country that is constitutionally committed to "peace, order and good government" — rather than the U.S. version of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Unlike the United States, Canada has a distinctive blend of flavors (or should I say flavours?) that are closer to their original forms.

Right at home

To over-simplify Canada, you take some unadulterated Anglo-Scottish rectitude, caution and intonation, throw in a good helping of rugged French-Canadian spirit, a hint of the Ukrainian steppe, a bit of transnational progressivism and a dash of pure Hong Kong, the Punjab — and the West Indies.

Not surprisingly, many Europeans and Asians feel at home right off the bat in Canada, even as the United States feels somewhat alien — and for that reason more exciting.

The Chilean cousin

Canada's Latin American cousin, in my view, must be Chile (save for the militarist episodes in Chile). Both are successful global natural resource powerhouses, and also remained socially conservative for a very long time before embarking on "quiet revolutions" (Canada in the 1960's, Chile more recently).

Yet, as concerns the realm of politics, one finds a bit more of Ottawa in Mexico City, with Canada's long-ruling Liberal Party seeming at times to be a cleaner "PRI of the North."

Near-permanent ruling coalitions do attract talented and energetic people — as was the case in Canada — even as the temptations of ambition, complacency and corruption build over time.

Royal roots

In January 2006, the result was the ousting of the Liberals and a new Tory prime minister for Canada, Stephen Harper, who seemed pleased to take the traditional oath to Her Majesty The Queen — a symbolic act not seen in what is now the United States since the 1770s.

So all in all, European connections and traditions do live on in the “New” World, but as this quick survey demonstrates, European are well-advised to dig a bit deeper before expressing puzzlement or irritation.