Rethinking Anti-Americanism
The History of an Exceptional Concept in American Foreign Relations

This book reveals how the concept of 'anti-Americanism' has been misused for over 200 years to stifle domestic dissent and dismiss foreign criticism.

Max Paul Friedman (Author)

9780521864916, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 27 August 2012

374 pages, 6 b/w illus.
23.6 x 16 x 2.5 cm, 0.66 kg

'[Friedman] has produced an outstanding piece of work that no scholar of 'anti-Americanism' will be able to ignore; original and thought provoking, this is a revisionist study in the best meaning of the term.' Egbert Klautke, Journal of Contemporary History

'Anti-Americanism' is an unusual expression; although stereotypes and hostility exist toward every nation, we do not hear of 'anti-Italianism' or 'anti-Brazilianism'. Only Americans have elevated such sentiment to the level of a world view, an explanatory factor so significant as to merit a name - an 'ism' - usually reserved for comprehensive ideological systems or ingrained prejudice. This book challenges the scholarly consensus that blames criticism of the United States on foreigners' irrational resistance to democracy and modernity. Tracing 200 years of the concept of anti-Americanism, this book argues that it has constricted political discourse about social reform and US foreign policy, from the War of 1812 and the Mexican War to the Cold War, from Guatemala and Vietnam to Iraq. Research in nine countries in five languages, with attention to diplomacy, culture, migration and the circulation of ideas, shows that the myth of anti-Americanism has often damaged the national interest.

1. Introduction: the myth of anti-Americanism
2. History of a concept
3. Americanism and anti-Americanism
4. The specter haunting Europe: anti-Americanism and the Cold War
5. Bad neighborhood: anti-Americanism and Latin America
6. Myth and consequences: de Gaulle, anti-Americanism, and Vietnam
7. Anti-Americanism in the age of protest
8. Epilogue: the anti-American century?

Subject Areas: 20th century history: c 1900 to c 2000 [HBLW], History of the Americas [HBJK], General & world history [HBG]