Antiamerikanismus im 20. Jahrhundert: Studien zu Ost- und Westeuropa (Anti-Americanism in the twentieth century: Studies on eastern and western Europe)

Abstract

This volume confirms that anti-Americanism is a heterogeneous set of biases and stereotypes that has remained particularly prominent among educated and bourgeois groups in Europe, a continent that has been exposed to American economic, political, and cultural influences at least since the late nineteenth century. Not surprisingly, though, this volume does not arrive at a coherent definition of the term. The attempt of the editors to distinguish between a “classical anti-Americanism” and one that was “radical” and “limitless” is not taken up by the succeeding contributions (p. 16). Undoubtedly, anti-American stereotypes could serve as a potential way to mobilize fears and aggressions to new ends. Konrad Jarausch's profound essay on “anti-Americanism as a projection” comes nearest to a comprehensive explanation by disentangling the idiosyncratic motives of both the European Left and Right in distancing themselves from America—ranging from a fundamental critique of capitalism to cultural fears about a U.S.-style, consumer-oriented modernity as a threat to the true culture of the Christian occident. Andrei S. Markovitz's astute essay is even more pointed: Anti-Americanism may offer an ideological glue for the European Union, one, however, that in recent years—as in the past—has shown an appalling connection with anti-Semitic tendencies.