America against the World: How We Are Different and Why We Are Disliked

Abstract

America's leading nonpartisan pollster shows how we are different--and how our exceptionalism feeds the rise in anti-Americanism The precipitous rise in anti-Americanism is startling. To understand why the world has turned against the United States, the Pew Research Center, under the leadership of Andrew Kohut, has undertaken an unprecedented survey of world opinion--more than 91,000 respondents in fifty nations. In Against the World, Kohut and Bruce Stokes unveil the sobering and surprising findings. America's image is at a low ebb: where once it was considered the champion of democracy, America is now seen as a self-absorbed, militant hyperpower. More than 70 percent of non-Americans say that the world would be improved if America faced a rival military power, and about half the citizens of Lebanon, Jordan, and Morocco think that suicide attacks on Americans in Iraq are justified. Where does this anti-Americanism come from? Kohut and Stokes find that what pushed the world away is American exceptionalism--our individualism and our go-it-alone attitude. And it doesn't help that Americans' pervasive religiosity and deep patriotism are often exaggerated by America's critics. Former Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright argues in her foreword that we cannot stop the spread of anti-Americanism without truly understanding who we are. Against the World provides the insight to take that step.