Photo: ARNAUD FINISTRE/AFP
Photo: ARNAUD FINISTRE/AFP

Ideas

The Overlooked Reason Europe Doesn’t Have AC

Americans and Europeans tend to have very different ideas about physical suffering and sacrifice.

First published in The Atlantic on June 28, 2026.

by Thomas Chatterton Williams, The Atlantic
July 2, 2026 | reading time: 6 Min.

This summer, the transatlantic culture war has fixated on an unlikely flash point: air-conditioning.

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