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A review by skitch41
Rethinking Anti-Americanism by Max Paul Friedman
5.0
(Note: Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Program)
"Anti-American" is a label that is bandied about quite frequently when people try to explain the ill-will that other's feel towards America. This phrase gained a lot of traction in recent years following America's War on Terrorism and intervention in Iraq and it has not always been used in a pretty matter when discussing the world. In this highly informative book, Max Paul Friedman, a historian of U.S. foreign policy at American University, explores the origins of the label and how it has been used to influence U.S. foreign policy or to explain a country's reaction to said policies, often with disastrous results. Friedman stretches his account all the way back to the American Revolution and shows how it first started as a phrase to silence domestic critics and then was expanded in the Twentieth Century to encompass a worldview of America as the exceptional nation and anyone opposed to U.S. policies in any way as holding to an anti-modern, impassioned point of view devoid any rational basis. Friedman, through his careful analysis of what motivated people and national leaders to protest U.S. policy, brilliantly turns this view on its head showing how those who claim there is an "Anti-American" basis for criticism of the U.S. are holding to a simplistic point of view devoid of any real-world evidence. Friedman points out that criticism of U.S., while at times has been very shocking and provocative, when examined in its original context, was actually meant to be constructive and help a country that these "Anti-Americans" actually admired or even idealized. This becomes especially clear when Friedman examines international protest of the Vietnam War. Ultimately, this is not a book for American's with a very narrow, black-and-white view of the world as it asks for a level of nuance and understanding of the world that few Americans actually have. And since it is an academic work written for other academics, average readers may find themselves a little bit lost in all the data. I know I was a little bit lost when Friedman's argument switched from an analysis of the label's evolution to it's distortion of U.S. foreign policy during the Cold War in chapter 4. But, for those of you who want a better understanding of "Why They Hate Us?", look no further than this book.
"Anti-American" is a label that is bandied about quite frequently when people try to explain the ill-will that other's feel towards America. This phrase gained a lot of traction in recent years following America's War on Terrorism and intervention in Iraq and it has not always been used in a pretty matter when discussing the world. In this highly informative book, Max Paul Friedman, a historian of U.S. foreign policy at American University, explores the origins of the label and how it has been used to influence U.S. foreign policy or to explain a country's reaction to said policies, often with disastrous results. Friedman stretches his account all the way back to the American Revolution and shows how it first started as a phrase to silence domestic critics and then was expanded in the Twentieth Century to encompass a worldview of America as the exceptional nation and anyone opposed to U.S. policies in any way as holding to an anti-modern, impassioned point of view devoid any rational basis. Friedman, through his careful analysis of what motivated people and national leaders to protest U.S. policy, brilliantly turns this view on its head showing how those who claim there is an "Anti-American" basis for criticism of the U.S. are holding to a simplistic point of view devoid of any real-world evidence. Friedman points out that criticism of U.S., while at times has been very shocking and provocative, when examined in its original context, was actually meant to be constructive and help a country that these "Anti-Americans" actually admired or even idealized. This becomes especially clear when Friedman examines international protest of the Vietnam War. Ultimately, this is not a book for American's with a very narrow, black-and-white view of the world as it asks for a level of nuance and understanding of the world that few Americans actually have. And since it is an academic work written for other academics, average readers may find themselves a little bit lost in all the data. I know I was a little bit lost when Friedman's argument switched from an analysis of the label's evolution to it's distortion of U.S. foreign policy during the Cold War in chapter 4. But, for those of you who want a better understanding of "Why They Hate Us?", look no further than this book.