Ameriphobia, Americanophobia
Rainy Day visitor Stavros Petrolekas writes:
"I generally try to avoid (paraphrasing Evelyn Waugh) the senile itch to write to blogs, but yours is such a gem, and what you discuss today is so tempting that I have succumbed.I read Schama's analysis in the New Yorker with interest and as well as your highlights of Mead's article in Foreign Affairs. Although clearly the subject for both is current anti-Americanism and the reasons for it, I think that one should remember that Ameriphobia (incidentally why not Americanophobia?) is just one side of the coin in the history of America's image in Europe. That formed by the written testimony of intellectuals and political commentators. There are however other sources, less "top down" and literary to be sure, but still eloquent testimony to the flip other side of this imagery. I refer to the thousands of letters, poor European immigrant masses to America sent home during the great 19th & early 20th century migrations. Much of this "bottom up" literature, surviving in numerous collections and academic monographs, is philoamerican, sometimes to the extreme. It remains nonetheless something that should be read alongside the Ameriphobic tirades of Europe's by and large affluent writers."
Regards,
Stavros Petrolekas
