George W. Bush's foreign policy touted America as the model of
democracy worth exporting to the four corners of the globe. Osama
bin Laden has painted a picture of our society as soulless and
materialistic, representing values that are the antithesis of his
version of Islam. Such starkly contrasting images of America fuel
much heated debate today and drive conflicts around the world. But
foreigners have long had a love/hate relationship with the United
States, as this book reveals.
Contributors from comparative literature, history, philosophy,
and political science combine their talents here to trace the
changing visions of America that foreign travelers to our shores
from England and France brought back to their contemporaries over
the course of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Novels and
letters, political analysis, and philosophy are mined for
perceptions of what America meant for these European visitors and
how idealistic or realistic their observations were. Major writers
such as Tocqueville play an important role in this dialogue, but so
do lesser-known thinkers such as Gustave de Beaumont, Michel
Chevalier, and Victor Jacquemont, whose importance this volume will
help resurrect.
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