L'Antiamericanisme

Waves of finger pointing and fist pumping in the aftermath of the atrocities of September 11, 2001, have revealed more clearly than ever before that the world is awash in various forms of what newspapers call “anti-Americanism.” But what is anti-Americanism? And, if it is in fact a valid, useful term defining a specific phenomenon, what do we know about its causes, its sources, or its past histories in various contexts, at home and abroad? Paul Hollander's book Anti-Americanism: Critiques at Home and Abroad, 1965–1990 (1992) broke the ground for study of this complex phenomenon, but some promising new work exploring different approaches is now being done by European academics. At least four conferences on the topic have been held in the past few years: in Paris in 1986 and 1999, in Amsterdam in 1986, and at Aix-en-Provence in 1999. The book under review, L'Antiaméricanisme, collects fifteen papers given (in English or French) at this last conference, which produced useful, if modest, results. One great richness of this multiauthor collection of approaches is the diversity of the specific, detailed case studies that are explored under the general heading of anti-American-ism—though several of these studies also then raise serious questions about the validity of such a dangerously diffuse founding category for analysis and critique, as they show how the term can often be applied to or brandished against people and situations—Charles de Gaulle, Frank Capra, blacklisted Hollywood writers—that clearly do not fill the bill

Anti-Americanism · Diversity (politics · Epistemology · Media studies · Newspaper · Phenomenon · Political science · Sociology · History · Law · Leadership, Human Resources, Global Affairs · Philosophy