Why Europe is a magnet for more Americans

“WHAT I ENVY you is your liberty,” says Count Valentin de Bellegarde to Christopher Newman, the protagonist of Henry James’s novel “The American”. Rich, self-made and free of class prejudice, Newman moves to Paris for fun, only to be sucked into the intrigues of the French aristocracy. The template still describes one type of American expat: the well-off innocent who comes to Europe for amusement or edification. Another sort, however, comes not to enjoy the old world but to escape the new one. “I didn’t know what would happen to me in France,” said James Baldwin, a black writer, of his decision to emigrate in 1948, “but I knew what would happen to me in New York.”