How the World Was Won: The Americanization of Everywhere - Rilegato

Conrad, Peter

3,38

21 valutazioni di Goodreads

9780500252086: How the World Was Won: The Americanization of Everywhere

Rilegato

ISBN 10: 0500252084 ISBN 13: 9780500252086

Casa editrice: Thames & Hudson, 2014

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On the day after 9/11, foreign newspapers ran headlines announcing “We Are All Americans Now.” Though the sentiment was not new, it was also not quite the same as when Henry Luce announced in 1941, the inauguration of what he called “the American Century,” during which the US was to raise all men “from the level of the beasts to what the Psalmist calls a little lower than angels.”When America suddenly emerged as a global power in the postwar period, the world—with pockets of resistance from France, Russia, and Japan in particular—was happy to be remade in the US image. America dazzled, and sometimes intimidated, older, staler, less innovative cultures. The affluence it placed on display was something to which most other countries aspired, and it was this fantasy that helped win the Cold War.Fast forward to today and the Chinese state news agency Xinhua, days before a possible financial default by the US government, calling for a de-Americanized world. A context for Peter Conrad’s grand tale is, inevitably, politics, war, and commerce, but for the most part he draws on his brilliant repertoire of cultural skills to assess, surprise, invigorate, and delight us with his kaleidoscopic presentation of the movies and music, jeans and sneakers, food and refrigerators, novels and paintings that have shaped so much of the world in our lifetimes.

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Recensione:

Conrad provides an entertaining and informative insight into America's seductive appeal. --The Sunday Times, Ian Critchley

This is the true outline of our times. --Observer

Thought-provoking ... enjoyable. --Times Literary Supplement

Conrad is one of a glittering generation of Australians cast on to the seas of world culture in the 1960s. --Observer

Conrad unrolls the 20th century like a giant canvas and takes us on a provocative, enjoyable romp through its quarrels, rivalries and vanities ... an absorbing and highly accessible book. Conrad is a gifted reader of the hidden codes that reveal a culture, a light-touch critic who tells his story well ... an affectionate, comprehensive survey of the art and popular culture of a century. --The Irish Times

A magisterial story, never before told in such an intelligent and, essentially, sympathetic manner. --Prospect

L'autore:

Peter Conrad is the author of over twenty books, including Creation, How the World Was Won, and Verdi and/or Wagner.

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