L'impero irresistibile

by Victoria de Grazia

Il Novecento è stato il secolo dell'egemonia americana: c'è chi dice per il ruolo nelle guerre mondiali, chi grazie all'isolamento strategico degli Stati Uniti, o all'uso della forza e dell'astuzia nella politica estera, o alla capacità di conquistare i cuori grazie a Hollywood e alla musica. Ma forse il fattore-chiave è un altro: forse è stata la poderosa modernizzazione del marketing e del sistema dei consumi che gli americani hanno prodotto a cavallo tra Otto e Novecento, segnando pacificamente il mondo occidentale.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, American History, European History, American, Society, The United States Of America

564 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2005

Reviews

[Kelly]

My favorite part in our discussion of this book in class was when I started talking about the seduction connotation of the word "Irresistable" and another girl and I got into a dialogue about the US "penetrating" Europe as the girl "doesn't really mean no when she says no," and how the US "got its hands" all over pretty Europe under the table in front of her parents.

... and our grandfatherly professor looked on in amused approval. That was the best.

Also, it's about all you need to know about this book.

[Anna]

At first I found this book unreadable. De Grazia's sentences might span six lines in the text, and you have to read three sentences at a time to understand a complete thought. However, like suffering through the initial bits of a Shakespeare play until it starts to sound right in your head, if you stick with de Grazia you will be rewarded. By the end, I realized this was one of the more interesting books that I have read this year.

[DS25]

Complesso, estremamente pesante per chi manca di una specializzazione in storia economica/di massa/dei consumi. Mi aspettavo un testo di storia culturale, non è così.

[AskHistorians]

A history of the U.S. cultural hegemony in Europe during the post-war era.

[Alexandra]

America really is that girl

[Kate]

Not exactly a bad book, but not as illuminating as I'd hoped. Heavy on the "colorful" detail, light on insight.

[Lelia Solitaire]

In this book the historian Victoria de Grazia guides us into a journey discovering the American economic empire and its ability to conquer and transform the Old Continent. The author illustrates the strengths of the US approach, telling us the story of a society highly permeable to novelty, curious, with a great purchasing power and sympathetic towards every kind of innovation bringing wealth. At the same time we find a likewise precise analysis of a strongly conservative Europe - divided into rigid social classes established by “birthright” - where the majority of the population had very scarce economic means. According to de Grazia, the American intellectuals were the first to land in Europe bringing a new concept of freedom, i.e. the freedom to purchase, and new habits; through the invention of the Rotary Club, the mass-produced cars, fashion and cinema, the ”American style" wealth was gradually making its way into the hearts of the raising bourgeoisie. Then, with the end of the Second World War, which left the most flourishing nations once depositories of European culture on their knees, the American "wonders" conquered the Old Continent becoming indispensable and changing forever our daily life. An interesting, compelling and instructive read

[Jok_T_Mur]

4.5

[Irene Irma]

non ho capito niente aiutooooo

[Josh]

This is one of those books where the title betrays the content of the book. Despite the illusions of grandeur from the title, the book focuses on America's soft power, instead of all the various means by which America expanded its power, including military and diplomatic. Soft power is, for sure, important, and it's a valuable story being told. Unfortunately, the geographical scope is limited to just France, Italy, and Germany, with some mentions of Britain here and there. As such, this is more Western Bloc Cold War Europe, rather than the whole of Europe. This limited geographical scope also limits the timeframe. Instead of the whole 20th century, it is focused on mostly the first-half of the 2oth century going into the early Cold War years, when the Marshall Plan was the key driver of soft power expansion.

That being said, this story is still worth telling. Unfortunately, the quality is inconsistent throughout the text. De Grazia's approach is to discuss one commodity or concept, like the supermarket, chain store, advertising, etc., to show how Americans targeted specific aspects of European culture to expand their influence. Within each chapter, there are two tasks: firstly, to narrate the introduction and expansion of that commodity in Europe, and secondly, to discuss how this commodity represents the spread of American culture in Europe. Unfortunately, the quality of each chapter is too unbalanced and often veers too much towards the first task, such that the argument is lost in the chapter behind a maze of narrative that does not add much value to the text. This imbalance is particularly evident in the chapter on Rotary Clubs that was not clear what the purpose of the Rotary Clubs was in spreading American culture at all. The chapters on concepts like Standards of Living and the Consumer Citizen are stronger because the arguments are much clearer and the narration is written more to support the arguments.

Because of this imbalance throughout the book, De Grazia's second thesis (beyond the spread of American influence in Europe) that Europe was charmed by American influence and gave at most a half-hearted resistance to the spread of such influence is not clear. Readers are expected to suss out evidence from the narratives, and unfortunately, De Grazia has fallen flat in this task.

The story in the book is a story worth telling, but unfortunately, this book has not done well. Readers can consider "How to Hide an Empire" by Daniel Immerwahr for a much stronger text (albeit with a different scope that focuses on America's "colonies" and "territories" than Europe. I had read that book first and was excited to read this book, but was sorely disappointed.

[Christopher]

This is a deeply insightful work on how America "conquered" Western Europe with one of the most devastating and total weapons in its arsenal during the twentieth century: economics. De Grazia isolates the nine characteristics of American consumer culture (the service ethic, branding, corporate advertising, etc.) and how each of these overcame intense cultural opposition in Europe and eventually made the West a true "consumers paradise." Here analysis is very keen on both how America's consumer-culture changed the European world in the interwar period (c. 1919-1939) and how those gains were solidified following World War II's end. However, there is one thing about this work that makes it seem distant both to me and to any possible general readers: de Grazia's prose is too cerebral. This is typified with her overuse of the words "bourgeois" and "bourgeoisie," which I was able to understand having had those words drilled into my head in my high school European history class, but I doubt that the average history reader would get it. In fact, her prose is so erudite that, at times, it hides the main argument in each chapter. While America's cultural dominance of twentieth century Europe should be studied, I would recommend this book only to a true history buff with a high SAT verbal score.

[Susanne]

Very interesting and well-researched. The number tidbits and anecdotes de Grazia cites can feel a bit haphazard or at least overwhelming at times, but all in all it's an interesting read. I especially liked the chapter on film culture and star cults, and was fascinated by her analysis of how the availability of household conveniences (to women, of course) came to stand for how well capitalist vs. Communist state were seen to provide for their citizens during the Cold War.

[Eleanore]

An eloquently written history of America's cultural engagement with Europe. Bringing in such unusual threads as the rise and fall of Rotary Clubs, the travels of Edward Filene (of Filene's basement), not to mention what Sinclair Lewis and Thomas Mann have in common, this book is a wonderful adventure in re-interpreting modern European history.

[Karl]

Not a fast read, well researched and comprehensive,
. . .and great vocabulary! I learned lots of new words