Anti-Americanism in European Literature

Pursues the hypothesis that fictional literature has been instrumental in the development and dissemination of European anti-Americanism from the early 1800s to today. Focusing on Britain, France and Germany, it offers analyses of a range of canonical literary works in which resentful hostility towards the United States is a predominant feature.

"...Gulddal has an eye for details and telling formulations (anti-Americanism is indeed a 'fusion of critique and resentment') and his work is well organized, concise and readable. It should encourage mroe research on how authors abuse American and European ideals in order to bolseter or criticize national identies." - TLS

"In a brilliant analysis of German, French, and English literature's major figures, Gulddal demonstrates convincingly that the antipathy towards most things American has deeply informed European public discourse much beyond immediate policy disagreements or disdained figures like George W. Bush. The negative 'essentializing' of American culture, character and way of life has a distinguished history among European intellectuals and shows little, if any, abating despite their superficial admiration of Barack Obama. This book is a tour de force that deserves a broad readership and wide discussion." - Andrei S. Markovits, University of Michigan and author of Uncouth Nation: Why Europe Dislikes America

"No other feeling has created more divisions between cultures than the feeling of anti-Americanism, regardless of whether it was staged as 'friendly criticism' or visceral aggression against the 'hegemonic power.' For both pragmatic and intellectual reasons, therefore, the topic of anti-Americanism has long been in need of a more 'neutral' interpretation. Gulddal's book brings the debate about anti-Americanism to a new, more complex and differentiated level by reconstructing the genealogy of this discourse from the point of view of fictional literature. This genealogy will not endear anti-Americanism to anyone but it helps us to understand how certain positions today have long been overshadowed and determined by prejudices originating in the remote past. Anti-Americanism in European Literature should become obligatory reading for all academic humanists and it will be a both informative and entertaining read for the larger public as well." - Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht, Stanford University

JESPER GULDDAL Senior Lecturer in English in the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Newcastle, UK.