Rating: 
Summary: An excellent read
Review: My perception of the US when I first moved here from Italy at the age of 23 to attend an American University was very much negatively biased by the daily media, where the US is portrayed as a country where people would be willing to sell their mothers for money, with very little morality, no regard for the poor, very racist and violent... Although I didn't quite believe all of it, it was very hard to escape the constant barrage of daily negative news about the US. Well, it turns out that this was mostly all wrong. I have been living in the US for about 10 years, most of which in NYC. I love this country and living in NYC. I found the American people a lot more civilized, open minded and compassionate than most Italians. Not to mention the dignity, patriotism and work ethic. This book should be a mandatory reading for every person in the world. If people would stop accusing the US and rather try to learn something from her, the world will be a far better place that it is today. And for any American who still believes in a socialist US, with the goverment in charge of solving all of your problems, read this book. If that didn't change your mind, then move to France or Italy for a couple of years... You will be running back in the US, thanking whatever higher power you believe in for the luck of being born here!! Happy reading!
Stefano
Rating: 
Summary: what crap
Review: negative 5 stars. this is the worst series of rambling idiocies since william bennett's last roll of tp. spare me.
Rating:
Summary: Exposing a mental disease with French flair!
Review: One of the most naïve delusions held by the American Left is that the current administration's foreign policy has made the USA an object of hatred. As a South African, I have news for them: The hatred directed against your president now is really hatred of your country. I first became aware of this loathing of America amongst Marxists and Fascists in the 1980s. By the nineties it had spread into the mainstream media and was much in evidence at the time of Clinton's intervention in Yugoslavia at the end of that decade. Yet these hysterical critics could provide no alternative way to stop Milosevich's ethnic cleansing. They have always hated America for what it is, rather than for what it does. In the chapter Contradictions Revel examines the inherently contradictory character of the diatribes against America, pointing out how European elites that criticise the USA conveniently forget that their own continent made the 20th century the most murderous in history with their two world wars, their criminal ideologies like communism and nazism and their colonialism. He also discusses the enviro-leftist hypocrisy about global warming and the Kyoto protocol. In this regard, please read Bjorn Lomborg's book The Skeptical Environmentalist. Revel then turns his attention to Antiglobalism and Anti-Americanism, proving that it really is a struggle against liberalism, of which the USA is a shining example. It is not that the left has anything against globalism, they just don't like the fact that people worldwide will be able freely trade with one another without government interference. These mostly young antiglobalists are blind ideologues, remnants from a past of cruelty and bloodshed. Poor Third World countries want more international trade because that is the only way they'll escape from poverty, in the same way Taiwan, Singapore, South Korea and others have done, and India is now doing. Only economic growth lifts poverty, as Johan Norberg demonstrates so well in his book In Defense Of Global Capitalism. Revel discusses Régis Benichi's three waves of globalization: the first started during the 16th and 17th centuries, the second that lasted from 1840 to 1914, and the third which has continued since the end of the second world war and has improved the lives of third world people in direct proportion to the individual countries' adherence to the rule of law and to the level of economic freedom. He explores America's relations with the world in the chapter Hatreds And Fallacies, detailing the distortions from the left following 9/11 and the liberation of Afghanistan. The phobias and fallacies of old-style anti-Americanism and of Neo-totalitarianism greatly intensified at this time. Revel also looks at the strange alliance between the Leftists and the Islamofascists, a marriage of convenience based on hatred. In the next chapter The Worst Society That Ever Was, Revel tackles the crude lies about American society invented by the French media. He points out the deliberate distortions and the contradictions, observing that such mendacity can only emanate from sick minds. He compares health care in the USA and Europe, looks at literature, crime statistics, the American melting pot versus large non-integrated minorities in France. I really enjoyed his dissection of the French state-sponsored movie industry and his hilarious opinion of the film Amelie as compared to the films of for example Ken Loach. In the chapter Cultural Extinction, Revel considers popular culture in more detail, proving that cross-fertilisation benefits everybody and that state protection of local culture leads to stagnation. Globalization enhances cultural diversity and is an engine of enrichment. He warns that anti-American phobias and antiglobalism might derail progress in Europe, referring to Guy Sorman's book Progress And Its Enemies. This is neither a right-wing nor left-wing idea, but a rational argument also defended by the socialist Claude Allegré. In chapter 6: Being Simplistic, Revel demolishes the argument that poverty is the root cause of terrorism, quoting Francis Fukuyama that the secular character of the Western concept of human rights at the heart of the liberal theory is the real enemy for the Jihadists. The Al-Qa'ida terrorists don't even mention economic inequalities, but reproach the West for contravening the teachings (or fundamentalist interpretations) of their religion's scripture. In the last chapter: Scapegoating, Revel distinguishes between rational criticism of the USA that is based on facts, and the mental/spiritual disease that is Anti-Americanism. The second is a fanatical mindset that is also obviously idiotic in that it condemns America for a certain behaviour (intervention in Kosovo) while simultaneously condemning it for the opposite (lack of intervention in Rwanda). Where was France anyway, in the case of Rwanda, since it has always interfered in Francophone Africa when it suits French interests. He cites numerous instances where the French elite demonises America while much worse was happening in France, like the fact that the extreme rightist Le Pen came second in the first round of the French presidential election of 2000. Revel concludes that the lunatic ravings of hatred for America and the opinionated ill will in much of the European media will only lead to Americans rejecting the idea of consultation. He believes that the USA's mistakes should always be subject to vigilant criticism but that the gross bias currently reigning will only weaken its exponents and encourage American unilateralism. The most important lesson from this book is that anti-Americanism is a disease, not a position. The prognosis is not good - Revel believes that countering this attitude with facts and reason will not work: " ... the disinformation in question is not the result of pardonable, correctable mistakes, but rather of profound psychological need." For more information on the mental disease of the hard left, (specifically in America), please read The Death Of Right And Wrong by Tammy Bruce, The Vision Of The Anointed by Thomas Sowell and Left Illusions by David Horowitz. For a clear picture of how globalization is improving the lives of everybody on the planet, read Johan Norberg's masterpiece, In Defense Of Global Capitalism.
Rating:
Summary: Finally... a Frenchman who gets it right
Review: Revel is not your typical Frenchman... he penned a similar book in 1970 called "Without Marx or Jesus" that is essentially the same subject - rampant and virulent anti-Americanism that has existed in Europe for decades, and the empty logic behind it all. "Anti-Americanism" revisits a subject Revel knows very well, and he uses contemporary issues to destroy the same cancerous anti-US rhetoric that is completely without logic, evidence, or benefit.
Revel's book is a blistering indictment of mindless anti-US tantrums thrown down by elitist cultures across Europe. While Revel saves his best critique for his own Frenchmen, he spares no other European (or in some cases Latin American and Asian) governments that join in. Revel knows America and loves America - despite its many faults - and doesn't let the latter stand in the way of attacks that are made by both simpletons and ignoramii with little (if any) direct knowledge or experience in America. The primary culprit is the European press and especially the elites who are convinced of their superiority and knowledge of a country and its people whom they actually know nothing about. Revel explains each fallacious argument or impression of America that is shared and regurgitated across oceans and decades, refutes them all completely with facts and logic, then generally blasts the hubris behind such empty, harmful, and fratricidal bile.
I listened to this book on tape, repeatedly cheered openly in the car during select passages, then promptly bought the book in hard copy when it was finished. For anyone who knows of or has experienced anything close to the issues and impressions in this book firsthand, I urge you to give a read to a Frenchman who actually - and triumphantly - has it all right.
Rating:
Summary: Europe after 2.500 years is blind, impotent and dying
Review: Revel's analysis is excellent. The European attitude towards the US is marred by a psychological schism from which Europeans can hardly escape. Yet there are voices in Europe which realize that constant bashing of US policy can lead to irreparable detrimental effects. The European 'libaralism' seems hardly to be working, hence all we hear from across the Atlantic are desperate cries of envy and hatred towards the US. The third largest economy in the world Germany is run by former terrorists and terrorist sympathisers. Joschka Fischer, the current minister of foreign affairs (radical left-wing Green Party member) is known to have participated in various terrorist activities during the 60's. Have a look at their website www.gruene.de to see what sort of incompetent monsters are running today's Germany. The situation in fourth largest economy France is not much different. Just to give an idea of how the French economy is being run: One fourth of the entire French workforce is state employees, yet the unemployment rate has been hovering steadily at about 10% for the past 20 years. French press, in particular Le Monde, is one of the most anti-american newspapers in Europe. Europe is not capable of uniting her strenghts; it will be therefore even more difficult to play a visible political role after EU enlargement next year when it will admit 10 new members from Central and Eastern Europe which on the whole share the same values and opinions of their Western counterparts. Growing anti-americanism and anti-semitism in Europe is truly an alarming signal. The US should be aware of European military unreliability and impotency. Maybe it's due to the fact that Europe has become an old sick lady who is just about to retire and doesn't intend to play a major role any more.
Rating: 
Summary: One Frenchman Can be Wrong
Review: The assumption that anti-Americanism is based on envy at falling behind the USA collides head-on with my experience of 20 years living in Europe. The bad news, my fellow Americans, is that the shoe is on the other foot. We are falling off the bottom of the chart in significant measures of well-being (our trillion-dollar weapons budget may count as a bad, not a good, to many citizens of a continent that has been bombed and occupied by the USA.)
Haven't you noticed Western Europeans practically stopped emigrating to the USA at least a generation ago? Europeans are beside themselves at the spectacle of a nation with the highest percentage of homeless and incarcerated citizens in the world, trying to run the world but not even bothering to learn about the rest of the world, expecting everyone to speak English and slavishly adopt the American way of life, when most people in Europe have had all they want of it already. It's in the poor countries, not the advanced ones, that America is still admired - mostly for the chance to earn a living here.
Ravel is right that anti-Americanism is not always rational, nor is Americanism, for that matter, but his book is a victim of its own success - the fact that it was a best-seller in France shows that our old friends are desperate to see us be our old selves again, the America that stood for human ideals. For an America on the skids to militarism and corporatism, Ravel's thesis is a sleeping pill when we need a wake-up call.
Rating: 
Summary: Spanish voters undo this French babblemouth
Review: There's a relatively simple thesis to this book which Revel articulates with French skill and insight: European intellectuals are grossly deficient in their opposition to American policies. On March 14, 2004, the Spanish showed the total folly of Revel; in a country where 90 percent of people oppose the war on Iraq, people voted the pro-American conservative government of Jose Maria Aznar out of office in the most crushing electoral defeat since Spain became a democracy. Aznar was a poster-child politician for everything Revel supports in this book; but it turns out the so-called "anti-American intellectuals" were right in their assessment of the mood of the people. Most of this book is a long litany of anti-Americanism, but Revel sadly doesn't understand and obviously can't explain the fundamental reason for such heresy. Spain is the perfect example of why anti-American attitudes are so strong in so many countries; for decades, the United States supported the Franco dictatorship instead of Spanish democrats. American politicians talk a lot about democracy, free elections, the will of the people and free enterprise; but, and this is especially true for conservative politicians, the US government backs almost every non-communist dictator who ever came to power. Truly, American democracy stops at the waters' edge. Revel agrees with President George Bush's assessment, "they hate us for our freedoms." Yet, this isn't what motivates Osama bin Laden, who wants to overthrow the House of Saud which rules Saudi Arabia with an iron fist, an endless supply of petro-dollars, about 25,000 members of a do-nothing royal family and the unwavering support of the US. Granted, bin Laden wants to replace the incumbent Saudi dictatorship with a religious tyranny that would make the House of Saud look like enlightened monarchs. Revel doesn't understand that intelligent Muslims oppose both the US support of petroligarchs and religious tyranny and would genuinely welcome a true democracy. It's why so many European intellectuals are anti-American; they favor liberty, equality, fraternity more than American complicity with Arab dictators whose grip on power is funded entirely by petrodollars. It's why Americans are so often so welcome in so many lands; as individuals, they are truly nice people. The "ugly American" is the one who thinks only American values, methods, wealth and goals means anything; sadly, official government policy is all too often based on supporting the dictator-of-the-moment instead of long-term democratic ideals. When Eugene Burdick and William J. Lederer wrote "The Ugly American" in the 1950s, they cited the folly of US diplomats and government officials rather than the ordinary decencies of everyday Americans. Granted, President Bush may well have made the boldest and most innovative incursion into the Arab world in at least 500 years in his effort to create a truly democratic "shining city on a hill" in Iraq as an example for the entire Arab world. If Bush succeeds, he will have lit the fires of freedom throughout the Arab world. The British and French promised as much after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire in 1918; both failed miserably. Syria is the legacy of French involvement; Britain had Iraq. Now the US is trying in Iraq. The Spanish, like many European nations emerging from often inept and irrational dictatorships, learned democracy is a home-grown process -- it cannot be imported. The great debate is how to generate this process. Bush's assumption is based on the promise that people who have never known representative democracy will appreciate it being imposed by armed conquest. Revel could have written a great book explaining why anti-Americanism exists, as well as the alternatives. Instead, he wasted 141 pages echoing the platitudes of US Radical Right extremists. There is nothing sadder than a Frenchman echoing the unthinking ideology of a US president who takes pride in never watching the news or reading books. Revel's final chapter concludes, "America is the scapegoat, made to bear all the sins of the world." True enough, because America is the hope of many peoples yearning to be free. Like every dream elevated to a shining pedestal, disillusion sets in when reality doesn't quite measure up to the fantasies of those who experience the dream. However, Revel is from a society that regards Jerry Lewis as an artistic giant of the last century. Perhaps, then, he can understand the wisdom of a cockroach. In 1933, Don Marquis offered many bon mots in 'archys life of mehitabel' including this gem about American politicians: did you ever
notice that when
a politician
does get an idea
he usually
gets it all wrong
Rating:
Summary: enlightening on why the world and France hate the US
Review: This book does an excellent job of discussing the reasons why there is such hatred for the US. It brings to light the hypocrasy on the various issues for this hatred that seems widespread. Even more, it exposes the socialist agenda and how flawed the socialist thinking is. An excellent book for any student of international politics or current events. It is very refreshing to read support for the US from a country that has traditionally despised the US and been jealous of what our country has accomplished.
Rating:
Summary: The cultural divide is not new, but the hypocrisy grows
Review: This book is really an update and refinement of Revel's earlier book entitled "Without Marx or Jesus" which dug into the great divide between the US and Europe.
It is also a book which reminds us that anti-Americanism is not a new phenomenon in Europe as best expressed by the founding editor of Le Monde, Hubert Beuve-Mery, who wrote in 1944, with American blood still being spilled by thousands of GI's in liberating Europe, that "Americans constitute a real danger for France...if they cling to a veritable cult of the idea of liberty(...) Revel correctly points out that much anti-Americanism stems from the success of a capitalist society while Europeans and much of the rest of the world struggle under varying forms of socialism. The jealousy of the American success story has much to do with the criticism today. Africa today is impoverished not because of a lack of resources, but because it embraced a socialist and communist economic system which can only lead to impoverishment when wealth is not created, but "shared". Americans are criticized while Europe ignores the human rights abuses of Libya, the Sudan, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, Iran, etc. all at the same time profiting greatly from their commercial contracts with those regimes. In many ways, Europe today is little different from the Europe of the 1930's, small minded, and always looking for scapegoats which the Jews were in that era.
Most amusing are the quotes regarding America being guilty of "unilateralism", long before George Bush rode into Washington.
Revel's latest book updates "Without Marx or Jesus" in many areas, and it is much to his credit that many of his observations of thirty years ago are even more relevant today. While we are focused on terrorist threats to the world in this century, it is not a new issue. The French attempt to put down the terrorist uprising in its former colony Algeria, was far more brutal and indiscriminate than anything done by the Americans response to al Qaeda, but the French were trying to preserve their economic interests, and not trying to spread the "cult of liberty" that Beuve-Mery found to be a such a great danger while the Gestapo ruled the streets of Paris.
This book, along with Kagan's "Paradise and Power" go a long way in explaining why American interests in Europe are much like the daddy who is hated by his rebellious adolescent. Left to their own devices, Europe will have to dig yet more graveyards for brave Americans who will have to save Europeans from themselves and their inability to learn from history again.
Rating:
Summary: Revel is an idiot
Review: this book sucks. I couldn't even make it past the dust jacket without wanting to vomit (on Jean)
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