What do you think?
Rate this book
Us and Them : What the Americans Think of the British -. What the British Think of the Americans
Davis gets to grip with national stereotypes on both sides of the Atlantic. Travelling around, armed with pencil, notebook and razor-sharp powers of observation for visual detail and the spoken word, he has produced a collection of sketches which capture the nuances of appearance, tone of voice and attitude of his subjects.
Paperback
First published January 1, 2004
12 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
April 8, 2018
A young (and apparently thin) Brit and a friend rode a motorcycle across the USA asking people what they thought of the British. Then they went to England (doesn’t seem they got to the rest of the UK) and asked folks what they thought of Americans (USAians). And drew their portraits.
The book was published in 2004.
Most of the Brits’ opinions (who, like the rest of the world, can’t escape seeing the USA on TV, overrepresented in media, etc) and so do have thoughts about, can be summarized as feeling that Americans (the States) are basically paranoid, blowhard, children - one pointing out that 6% of USAians have passports but over 70% have been to Disneyland or Disneyworld. Fairly good evidence, imho.
Among the comments from random British when asked “What do you think of/about Americans?”
“It must be kind of good not to give a shit about the rest of the world”
“They are nothing but evil.”
“The Americans are SO easy to laugh at.”
“Best not to think about middle America because the horror is too great”
“I said this to an American friend “No. You’re wrong. Sony and Toyota are not American.” She gasped. She drove home in a Nissan.”
Across the pond, the “monoglot xenophobes with a penchant for ...violence” folks in the States, when asked what they thought of the British responded:
Many with variants of: “I dunno. Guess I like the accent”
A few with: “snobbish”
“A lingering sense of imperialism”
“Zackly de same ‘cept we’s louder”
“You guys have shitty teeth”
I’d love to see a follow up book; riding through the States asking folks what they think of their own country, (the USA!) now, after a year of rape and pillage by Trump et al. Now that it is the industrialized country with the most inequity, the biggest and fastest growing gap between the very few haves and the ever more numerous have nothings. The UN report Dec. 2017 “If you are born poor in the US, you’ll stay poor.” They found that only those born into wealth, will have wealth as adults.
Insights from 2004, the year this book was published and the 2nd year of the unilaterally aggressive Iraq war begun on lies, perpetuated on lies, killing and displacing millions, only one person who was questioned, mentions it. This book is a snapshot, a moment captured wonderfully.
The best thing about it, however, is not the words - although some of those were hilarious, some poignant - the most delicious thing? the drawings. Paul draws the people he is quizzing, mostly in a blank background, they’re alone, but completely different from each other. Somehow in a Grandma Moses / simplistic / genius way he uses slight changes in color or shading to completely alter a personality. Anger can be right under the skin, ready to explode, clearly manifest, without an angry word. The intellectual reminding us not to judge could have been drawn with one continuous motion of his marker (simple), but her lips, cheekbones, haircut, glasses, turtleneck - make her out to be Oxbridge-like. Tisane, not a pint.
What he does is quite spectacular.
And i wish you could see this charming mince brained couple:
Q: What do you think about Britain?
A: Oh, I don’t know about that. My wife here is an anti-capitalist “feeling” therapist who works a lot within the business community.”
There you have it. A fine slice of USAian logic, served raw, with fries (aka chips).
The book was published in 2004.
Most of the Brits’ opinions (who, like the rest of the world, can’t escape seeing the USA on TV, overrepresented in media, etc) and so do have thoughts about, can be summarized as feeling that Americans (the States) are basically paranoid, blowhard, children - one pointing out that 6% of USAians have passports but over 70% have been to Disneyland or Disneyworld. Fairly good evidence, imho.
Among the comments from random British when asked “What do you think of/about Americans?”
“It must be kind of good not to give a shit about the rest of the world”
“They are nothing but evil.”
“The Americans are SO easy to laugh at.”
“Best not to think about middle America because the horror is too great”
“I said this to an American friend “No. You’re wrong. Sony and Toyota are not American.” She gasped. She drove home in a Nissan.”
Across the pond, the “monoglot xenophobes with a penchant for ...violence” folks in the States, when asked what they thought of the British responded:
Many with variants of: “I dunno. Guess I like the accent”
A few with: “snobbish”
“A lingering sense of imperialism”
“Zackly de same ‘cept we’s louder”
“You guys have shitty teeth”
I’d love to see a follow up book; riding through the States asking folks what they think of their own country, (the USA!) now, after a year of rape and pillage by Trump et al. Now that it is the industrialized country with the most inequity, the biggest and fastest growing gap between the very few haves and the ever more numerous have nothings. The UN report Dec. 2017 “If you are born poor in the US, you’ll stay poor.” They found that only those born into wealth, will have wealth as adults.
Insights from 2004, the year this book was published and the 2nd year of the unilaterally aggressive Iraq war begun on lies, perpetuated on lies, killing and displacing millions, only one person who was questioned, mentions it. This book is a snapshot, a moment captured wonderfully.
The best thing about it, however, is not the words - although some of those were hilarious, some poignant - the most delicious thing? the drawings. Paul draws the people he is quizzing, mostly in a blank background, they’re alone, but completely different from each other. Somehow in a Grandma Moses / simplistic / genius way he uses slight changes in color or shading to completely alter a personality. Anger can be right under the skin, ready to explode, clearly manifest, without an angry word. The intellectual reminding us not to judge could have been drawn with one continuous motion of his marker (simple), but her lips, cheekbones, haircut, glasses, turtleneck - make her out to be Oxbridge-like. Tisane, not a pint.
What he does is quite spectacular.
And i wish you could see this charming mince brained couple:
Q: What do you think about Britain?
A: Oh, I don’t know about that. My wife here is an anti-capitalist “feeling” therapist who works a lot within the business community.”
There you have it. A fine slice of USAian logic, served raw, with fries (aka chips).
July 11, 2019
This small book contains British cartoonist Paul Davis's sketches of random Britons and Americans that he met on the street, along with their (equally random) responses to his question "What do you think of the Americans/British?"
I had never heard of Paul Davis before perusing Us & Them, hardly surprising given that my knowledge of comics and graphic art is so limited, and this book certainly doesn't inspire me to discover more. While I find the premise appealing in the abstract, the execution just doesn't live up to my expectations.
The illustrations themselves were crude and unappealing, looking like nothing so much as a grade schooler's self-indulgent scribbling. As someone who is frequently drawn to the beautiful ugliness of the grotesque and the irregular (as witnessed by my love of the incomparable Gertrude Degenhardt), I do not require that art be "pretty." But if it lacks the power to move me, and displays no technical skill whatsoever, as is the case here, I fail to see the point of looking at it.
The responses that Davis recorded from his subjects were no more rewarding than his drawings, being neither especially funny nor particularly penetrating. The stereotypes of the oblivious American, ignorant of the wider world, and the judgmental Briton, wrapped in an impenetrable cloak of assumed superiority, are here for the browsing. We're more alike than we think, apparently, at least when it comes to lazy thinking and shallow analysis... but I didn't need to read Us & Them to discover that.
I had never heard of Paul Davis before perusing Us & Them, hardly surprising given that my knowledge of comics and graphic art is so limited, and this book certainly doesn't inspire me to discover more. While I find the premise appealing in the abstract, the execution just doesn't live up to my expectations.
The illustrations themselves were crude and unappealing, looking like nothing so much as a grade schooler's self-indulgent scribbling. As someone who is frequently drawn to the beautiful ugliness of the grotesque and the irregular (as witnessed by my love of the incomparable Gertrude Degenhardt), I do not require that art be "pretty." But if it lacks the power to move me, and displays no technical skill whatsoever, as is the case here, I fail to see the point of looking at it.
The responses that Davis recorded from his subjects were no more rewarding than his drawings, being neither especially funny nor particularly penetrating. The stereotypes of the oblivious American, ignorant of the wider world, and the judgmental Briton, wrapped in an impenetrable cloak of assumed superiority, are here for the browsing. We're more alike than we think, apparently, at least when it comes to lazy thinking and shallow analysis... but I didn't need to read Us & Them to discover that.
January 22, 2016
Hilarious!
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews