Ian Buruma is a freelance author and journalist in London, England, and a former fellow at the Woodrow Wilson Center.

Voltaire was an anglophile. The French philosopher held English culture in high regard for its freedom of thought and celebration of the individual thinker. Goethe also had a high regard for England's literature and his countrymen relished the work of Shakespeare. Just as significantly, other European political and intellectual leaders had disdain for England. In either case, attitudes toward England have been part of a personal and national search for identity for many centuries. Ian Buruma explains this in his new book "Anglomania."