Irresistible Empire: America's Advance through Twentieth-Century Europe

by De Grazia

The most significant conquest of the twentieth century may well have been the triumph of American consumer society over Europe’s bourgeois civilization. It is this little-understood but world-shaking campaign that unfolds in Irresistible Empire , Victoria de Grazia’s brilliant account of how the American standard of living defeated the European way of life and achieved the global cultural hegemony that is both its great strength and its key weakness today.

De Grazia describes how, as America’s market empire advanced with confidence through Europe, spreading consumer-oriented capitalism, all alternative strategies fell before it―first the bourgeois lifestyle, then the Third Reich’s command consumption, and finally the grand experiment of Soviet-style socialist planning. Tracing the peculiar alliance that arrayed New World salesmanship, statecraft, and standardized goods against the Old World’s values of status, craft, and good taste, Victoria de Grazia follows the United States’ market-driven imperialism through a vivid series of cross-Atlantic incursions by the great inventions of American consumer society. We see Rotarians from Duluth in the company of the high bourgeoisie of Dresden; working-class spectators in ramshackle French theaters conversing with Garbo and Bogart; Stetson-hatted entrepreneurs from Kansas in the midst of fussy Milanese shoppers; and, against the backdrop of Rome’s Spanish Steps and Paris’s Opera Comique, Fast Food in a showdown with advocates for Slow Food. Demonstrating the intricacies of America’s advance, de Grazia offers an intimate and historical dimension to debates over America’s exercise of soft power and the process known as Americanization. She raises provocative questions about the quality of the good life, democracy, and peace that issue from the vaunted victory of mass consumer culture.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, American History, European History, American, Society, The United States Of America

608 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2005

Reviews

[Kelly · Rating 3 out of 5]

My favorite part in our discussion of this book in class was when I started talking about the seduction connotation of the word "Irresistable" and another girl and I got into a dialogue about the US "penetrating" Europe as the girl "doesn't really mean no when she says no," and how the US "got its hands" all over pretty Europe under the table in front of her parents.

... and our grandfatherly professor looked on in amused approval. That was the best.

Also, it's about all you need to know about this book.

[DS25 · Rating 3 out of 5]

Complesso, estremamente pesante per chi manca di una specializzazione in storia economica/di massa/dei consumi. Mi aspettavo un testo di storia culturale, non è così.

[Anna · Rating 4 out of 5]

At first I found this book unreadable. De Grazia's sentences might span six lines in the text, and you have to read three sentences at a time to understand a complete thought. However, like suffering through the initial bits of a Shakespeare play until it starts to sound right in your head, if you stick with de Grazia you will be rewarded. By the end, I realized this was one of the more interesting books that I have read this year.

[AskHistorians]

A history of the U.S. cultural hegemony in Europe during the post-war era.

[Alexandra · Rating 4 out of 5]

America really is that girl

[Kate · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not exactly a bad book, but not as illuminating as I'd hoped. Heavy on the "colorful" detail, light on insight.

[Lelia Solitaire · Rating 4 out of 5]

In this book the historian Victoria de Grazia guides us into a journey discovering the American economic empire and its ability to conquer and transform the Old Continent. The author illustrates the strengths of the US approach, telling us the story of a society highly permeable to novelty, curious, with a great purchasing power and sympathetic towards every kind of innovation bringing wealth. At the same time we find a likewise precise analysis of a strongly conservative Europe - divided into rigid social classes established by “birthright” - where the majority of the population had very scarce economic means. According to de Grazia, the American intellectuals were the first to land in Europe bringing a new concept of freedom, i.e. the freedom to purchase, and new habits; through the invention of the Rotary Club, the mass-produced cars, fashion and cinema, the ”American style" wealth was gradually making its way into the hearts of the raising bourgeoisie. Then, with the end of the Second World War, which left the most flourishing nations once depositories of European culture on their knees, the American "wonders" conquered the Old Continent becoming indispensable and changing forever our daily life. An interesting, compelling and instructive read

[Jok_T_Mur · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5

[Irene Irma]

non ho capito niente aiutooooo

[Christopher · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a deeply insightful work on how America "conquered" Western Europe with one of the most devastating and total weapons in its arsenal during the twentieth century: economics. De Grazia isolates the nine characteristics of American consumer culture (the service ethic, branding, corporate advertising, etc.) and how each of these overcame intense cultural opposition in Europe and eventually made the West a true "consumers paradise." Here analysis is very keen on both how America's consumer-culture changed the European world in the interwar period (c. 1919-1939) and how those gains were solidified following World War II's end. However, there is one thing about this work that makes it seem distant both to me and to any possible general readers: de Grazia's prose is too cerebral. This is typified with her overuse of the words "bourgeois" and "bourgeoisie," which I was able to understand having had those words drilled into my head in my high school European history class, but I doubt that the average history reader would get it. In fact, her prose is so erudite that, at times, it hides the main argument in each chapter. While America's cultural dominance of twentieth century Europe should be studied, I would recommend this book only to a true history buff with a high SAT verbal score.

[Susanne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting and well-researched. The number tidbits and anecdotes de Grazia cites can feel a bit haphazard or at least overwhelming at times, but all in all it's an interesting read. I especially liked the chapter on film culture and star cults, and was fascinated by her analysis of how the availability of household conveniences (to women, of course) came to stand for how well capitalist vs. Communist state were seen to provide for their citizens during the Cold War.

[Eleanore · Rating 4 out of 5]

An eloquently written history of America's cultural engagement with Europe. Bringing in such unusual threads as the rise and fall of Rotary Clubs, the travels of Edward Filene (of Filene's basement), not to mention what Sinclair Lewis and Thomas Mann have in common, this book is a wonderful adventure in re-interpreting modern European history.

[Karl · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not a fast read, well researched and comprehensive,
. . .and great vocabulary! I learned lots of new words