How the World Was Won: The Americanization of Everywhere

Description

'We Are All Americans Now' proclaimed headlines around the world on the day after 9/11. It was not news: it had been true for several decades. In 1945, profiting from a world war that had bankrupted the other combatants, the United States established a new global order, and - despite French resistance to Coca-Cola and processed cheese, and Russia's antagonistic economic theory - set about Americanizing all other countries. Idealistic by nature, Americans saw this as a mission of redemption. The new empire's subjects were eager enough to be converted, though not for moral and spiritual reasons: America proved irresistible because of the gloss and glamour of its self-presentation, and the consumer goods it bestowed on the markets. America did indeed save the world, though isolationists in Washington wondered whether the expensive effort was worthwhile. And despite the first flush of enthusiasm for the liberating GIs with their gifts of chocolate bars and nylon stockings, a wrenching disillusionment followed in the 1960s during the Vietnam War. 9/11 gave a sudden and traumatic warning that the American century might be coming to an abrupt, premature end. Looking back over the era since 1945, Peter Conrad tracks America's rise to become 'master of the earth', and measures what we have gained and lost by Americanization. Inevitably he deals with resistance to this domination - even by Americans, some of whom deployed the 'elephantine agony' of their distended republic and remembered the fate of Rome. But as an admirer of the country's people, landscape and culture, Conrad ends by saying 'Thanks, America'. The context for this grand tale is, inevitably, politics, war and commerce, but for the most part Conrad delights us with a kaleidoscopic presentation of America's unstoppable creativity: its output of great, good and enjoyably bad art, of jeans and jazz, fast food and fridges, comic books and motorbikes, technologies and therapies, along with the heroic, erotic or terrifyingly violent cinematic scenarios that have Americanized even our dreams.

Peter Conrad taught English literature at Christ Church, Oxford, from 1973 to 2011. He has written more than twenty books, including How the World Was Won: The Americanization of Everywhere; Creation: Artists, Gods & Origins; At Home in Australia; and Modern Times, Modern Places: Life and Art in the Twentieth Century, all published by Thames & Hudson.

'Conrad is stunningly well-informed, compulsively allusive and equipped with the kind of imagination that transforms the base metal of history into pure gold' - Observer 'Marvellous ... sparkling with arresting vignettes - a testament to forensic research' - Independent 'Conrad unrolls the 20th century like a giant canvas and takes us on a provocative, enjoyable romp through its quarrels, rivalries and vanities ... an absorbing and highly accessible book ... an affectionate, comprehensive survey of the art and popular culture of a century' - The Irish Times 'Very fine ... vastly detailed and immensely subtle' - The Glasgow Herald 'A magisterial story, never before told in such an intelligent and, essentially, sympathetic manner' - Prospect