Andy Markovits

Uncouth Nation is an examination of the pan-European phenomenon of anti-Americanism. As a European who has never even visited the US, but has spent 7 years in an American-run private school and is immersed in American online environments, this is a subject of interest to me. I encounter a lot of malicious prejudice regarding the US of A, and I do believe it is a serious problem.

Markovits does well in describing anti-Americanism and demonstrating how it is directed more fundamentally at what America is rather than what America does. He is right in identifying the source of this prejudice as a resentment and envy of "Mr. Big" and relates it to perennial anxieties that Europe has had about the US since its inception. An especially interesting section described German identification with Native Americans in Karl May's writings and other German cultural artifacts. I grew up reading Karl May, so there were some really illuminating insights. Markovits is also great at pointing out European hypocrisy in straddling America with all the blame for globalization or corporate misdeed. The chapter on the relationship between anti-Semitism and anti-Americanism was especially fascinating, as it is not something I had really noticed, but the connection undoubtedly exists.

What I didn't enjoy all that much was the dry, academic tone of the book. Academic writing can be engaging, but there was just something languid and long-winded about the way the author articulated himself. What I'm trying to say is that I was often bored. It wasn't terribly well-written and could have used some editing. The book also felt a bit incomplete, like a collection of notes or essays didn't cohere in a very satisfying way. Because the last chapter was actually a separate essay, it repeated many previously stated points, which was annoying. The constant jabs at George W. Bush quickly got tiring, too, although there was truth to the fact that Bush intensified anti-American sentiment.

Uncouth Nation gets a 2.5 rating overall. It's a bit "meh" on some points, but there were enough interesting observations and good analyses to merit a rating in the ballpark of 3 stars. Ch. 4 is worth reading on its own, but I think the book could just have been condensed and published as a long magazine article. It's all right, verging on good.… (mais)

Markovits has written a pretty ambitious book that attempts to trace the origin of European anti-Americanism - not just to 2003, which some people seem to believe is the genesis of the phenomenon, but to the very discovery of the New World. It's necessary to do so, he argues, because anti-Americanism, as with all pathological hatreds, has precious little to do with America as it actually is. He does lay some of the blame for the recent uptick in anti-Americanism at Bush's feet but spends far more ink on opportunistic European leaders who have stoked the fire in an attempt to generate support for their pan-European project; Romanian-born, pro-European (small "u") union Markovits's dismay over this is palpable. Overall, Markovits does a good job tackling a very prickly subject, and his perspective as a man of the left is valued, this being a topic the discussion of which has been left largely up to the American right.… (mais)