Hating America: A History

This informative and well-researched volume makes clear that the roots of these attitudes reach back at least two centuries. The authors...make a good case that in many instances anti-Americanism is stimulated by rulers of repressive, corrupt, and stagnant societies who seek to divert attention from their own misrule. The authors also rightly emphasize the unifying force of anti-Americanism: groups and movements found at opposite ends of the political spectrum, culturally and developmentally different countries and ethnic groups all find a common ground in despising the United States.... Hating America is an excellent source for grasping the essentials of anti-Americanism abroad."--The Journal of American History

"But America... represents a special type of challenge to the world. That challenge has been recognized, feared, resented and finally hated, as Barry Rubin and Judith Colp Rubin amply illustrate in their fascinating study: Hating America: A History."--The Washington Times

"[A] wise, pungent, and (given its negative subject matter) enjoyable study."--Daniel Pipes, New York Sun

"Hating America treats fairly, and exhaustively, an issue that will challenge America for years at home and abroad."--Charlotte Observer

"A multifaceted national portrait.... This book provides entertaining glimpses of a nation that may have invented public relations to combat its own image problem."--Publishers Weekly

"In this comprehensive and compelling yet disturbing analysis, Barry and Judith Colp Rubin, authors of a superb biography last year on Yasser Arafat, delve deep into American history to uncover the roots of an omnipresent global phenomenon."--Miami Herald



Product Description

Reviled as an imperialist power, an exporter of destructive capitalism, an arrogant crusader against Islam, and a rapacious over-consumer casually destroying the planet, it seems that the United States of America has rarely been less esteemed in the eyes of the world. In such an environment, one can easily overlook the fact that people from other countries have, in fact, been hating America for centuries. Barry Rubin and Judith Colp Rubin here draw on sources from a wide range of countries to track the entire trajectory of anti-Americanism. With this powerful work, the Rubins trace the paradox that is America, a country that is both the most reviled and most envied land on earth. In the end, they demonstrate, anti-Americanism has often been a visceral response to the very idea--as well as both the ideals and policies--of America itself, its aggressive innovation, its self-confidence, and the challenge it poses to alternative ideologies.



336 pages

Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA (December 8, 2005)

Language: English