Anti-Americanism

By: Jean-Francois Revel

Narrated by: Christopher Lane

Length: 7 hrs and 18 mins

Publisher's summary

After the 9-11 attack on the United States, the brief moment of global sympathy for America soon began giving way to blame. In France and other quarters of Europe, and elsewhere in the world, it was said that the Americans had brought this violence upon themselves. The United States was a "cowboy" nation disinclined to abide by the will of the United Nations and other multilateral institutions and bent on pursuing its objectives at any cost. It was the "hyperpower" whose corporations manipulated world markets and whose riches were acquired at the price of Third World impoverishment. No wonder it had been attacked!

Angered by these assaults on a nation he knows and admires, the distinguished French intellectual Jean-Francois Revel has come to America's defense in Anti-Americanism, a biting and erudite book that, paradoxically, given his country's especially vehement attack on the U.S., spent several weeks last year at the top of France's best seller list.

©2002 Plon (P)2004 Blackstone Audiobooks

Critic reviews

"Revel writes with a style at once informative and incisive." (Publishers Weekly)

America is not Bush; France is not Chirac

This is a bunch of hype based on false assumptions. Most people in France love American culture and other foreign cultures and embrace a more international world and free fair markets. The French wear blue jeans and listen to rock music and drink Coke. They are now part of Europe, with the Euro as currency and European passports etc. Some of the biggest businesses in the world are in France. This whole concept of rampant French "Anti-Americanism" is dangerous nonsense. Many people in other countries, along with half the people in the U.S. oppose, for example, Bush's war in Iraq. Many Republicans have pointed out many flaws in Bush's foreign and domestic policies, and even the most superficial reading of the Wall Street Journal would reveal an endless stream of instances of corruption in big corporations. Does that mean they are anti-American and anti-business? To be against wrong policy or bad business is not to be against all policy or all business. The world's problems will not be helped by more xenophophia based on a hyped-up threat of blind "anti-Americanism."