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Books > History > American history
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Hating America - A History (Paperback, New edition)
Loot Price: R928
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Hating America - A History (Paperback, New edition)
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In the early twenty-first century, the world has been seized by one
of the most intense periods of anti-Americanism in history. Reviled
as an imperialist power, an exporter of destructive capitalism, an
arrogant crusader against Islam, and a rapacious over-consumer
casually destroying the planet, it seems that the United States of
America has rarely been less esteemed in the eyes of the world. In
such an environment, one can easily overlook the fact that people
from other countries have, in fact, been hating America for
centuries. Going back to the day of Thomas Jefferson and Ben
Franklin, Americans have long been on the defensive. Barry Rubin
and Judith Colp Rubin here draw on sources from a wide range of
countries to track the entire trajectory of anti-Americanism. Most
significantly, they identify how anti-Americanism evolved over
time. In the 18th century, the newfound land was considered too
wild and barbaric to support human society. No one, the argument
went, could actually live there. Animals brought from Europe, one
French commentator claimed, shrunk in size and power. Native
Americans too were "small and feeble," lacking "body hair, beard
and ardor for his female." The very land itself was "permeated with
moist and poisonous vapors, unable to give proper nourishment
except to snakes and insects." This opinion prevailed through most
of the 19th century, with Keats even invoking the lack of
nightingales as symptomatic of just how unlovely and unlivable a
place this America was. As the young nation came together at the
beginning of the twentieth century and could no longer be easily
dismissed as a failure, its very success became cause for
suspicion. The American model of populist democracy, the rise of
mass culture, the spread of industrialization-all confirmed that
America was now a viral threat that could destabilize the
established order in Europe. After the paroxysm of World War II,
the worst fears of anti-Americanists were realized as the United
States became one of the two most powerful nations in the world.
Then, with the collapse of the Soviet Union, America became the
sole superpower it is today, and the object of global suspicion and
scorn. With this powerful work, the Rubins trace the paradox that
is America, a country that is both the most reviled and most envied
land on earth. In the end, they demonstrate, anti-Americanism has
often been a visceral response to the very idea-as well as both the
ideals and policies-of America itself, its aggressive innovation,
its self-confidence, and the challenge it poses to alternative
ideologies.
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