Irresistible Empire: America's Advance Through Twentieth-Century Europe by Victoria de Grazia

Abstract

Irresistible Empire: Advance Through Twentieth-Century Europe Victoria de Grazia. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 2005. There can be no question that the twentieth century brought forth a more global economy. The colonialism of past centuries opened markets in places previously unknown. By the twentieth century America had employed its industrial innovation and marketing to make inroads into new markets. American goods and services became available to people all over the world. Today McDonald's restaurants and Coca-Cola products are ubiquitous. One area on which America concentrated to acquire new markets throughout the twentieth century was Europe. With opportunities emerging from two world wars, and the devastation thereafter, America had the chance to establish itself as a world economic powerhouse by providing Europeans with products and business methods developed in America. In Irresistible Empire author Victoria de Grazia examines the twentieth century, America's Century, from the perspective of American industrial might, the intent to establish economic hegemony in Europe, as well as the irrefutable influence economics has had on events thereof. In the author's literary trek through the twentieth century, the reader gets a thorough look at specific events and examples which have made the American economy so powerful in Europe, and how policy decisions such as the Marshall Plan, may have been made from an economic paradigm, de Grazia demonstrates how, through consorted efforts, taking advantage of Europe's struggle in rebuilding its war-torn infrastructure, and anticipation to get back to peace, American business provided Europeans with necessities as well as luxury items. Through this effort, American businesses and associations went from a minor economic player on the world stage to part of a dominant and imposing economic system able to affect economic and political change from across the Atlantic. And she portrays the economic events and changes Europeans experienced in consumer culture without praise or condemnation. Fittingly, in the introductory chapter, the table was set for American advance into European markets via a speech by President Woodrow Wilson in 1916 to the first World's Salesmanship Congress in which he outlined ideas for American businessmen to sell goods abroad, particularly Europe. His charge to his audience, which echoed to American industry, was to develop goods that the foreign consumers want; to keep pace with consumer's taste, and to change accordingly. Promoting democracies of consumption (4) became a goal; unique, de Grazia asserts, from previous imperial systems established by European nations such as Great Britain and Spain in that it was established to disrupt entrenched European economic buying patterns of class distinction, local production, and long-established market events. The Leipzig Fair, for example, had been a 700-year-old tradition, which waned in popularity during the middle of the twentieth century as American consumer goods flooded Europe. What was once a showcase for local products became marginalized as consumers could buy items cheaper and closer to home, an American characteristic. …