The Anti-American Century

171 Pages·2007·2.15 MB·English

by  Ivan Krastev

Edited by
Alan McPherson
Ivan Krastev
The Anti-
American
Century
C E U P R E S S
The AnTi-AmericAn cenTury
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The Anti-
American
Century
edited by
ivan Krastev and Alan mcPherson
central european university Press
Budapest new york
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© 2007 by ivan Krastev, Alan mcPherson

Published in 2007 by
Central european university press
An imprint of the
central european university Share company
nádor utca 11, h-1051 Budapest, hungary
Tel: [phone] or 327-3000
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All rights reserved. no part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted,
in any form or by any means, without the permission
of the Publisher.
iSBn 978-963-7326-80-6 cloth

Library of congress cataloging-in-Publication Data
The anti-American century / edited by ivan Krastev and Alan mcPherson.
p. cm.
“Papers in this volume were first presented at the conference ‘Past and Present:
is There Anything new with Anti-Americanism Today?’ held at central european
university in Budapest in December 2004”—Ack.
includes bibliographical references and index.
iSBn 978-9637326806 (cloth)
1. Anti-Americanism—history—20th century—congresses. 2. Anti-Americanism—
congresses. i. Krastev, ivan. ii. mcPherson, Alan L. iii. Title.
e744.A67 2007
303.48’27301724090511--dc22
2007004804
Printed in hungary by
Akadémiai nyomda, martonvásár
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contents
aCknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii
introduCtion
ivan Krastev . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
the anti-ameriCan Century?
ivan Krastev . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
“little ameriCa”—eastern european eConomiC
Cultures in the eu
Janos matyas Kovacs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
anti-ameriCanism in latin ameriCa and the
Caribbean—“False populism” or Coming Full CirCle?
Alan mcPherson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
rethinking young anti-ameriCanism in south korea
youngshik Bong and Katharine h. S. moon . . . . . . . 77
how “big brother” beCame the “great satan”—
Changing perCeptions oF the united states among
the muslim Communities oF southeast asia
Farish Ahmad noor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
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a plea For distinCtions–disentangling
anti-ameriCanism From anti-semitism
Brian Klug . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
list oF Contributors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161
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Acknowledgments
editors of this volume wish to thank the center for Poli-
cy Studies at central european university for hosting and
supporting a three-year research project “Political conse-
quences of Anti-Americanism.” Papers in this volume were
first presented at the conference “Past and Present: is there
anything new with anti-Americanism today?” held at cen-
tral european university in Budapest in December 2004.
The aim of the volume is to explore the “old” and “new”
anti-Americanism from a wide range of perspectives and its
various forms in different parts of the world.
We would like to thank the members of the project
Steering committee Diane Stone, Tony Judt, Thomas
carothers, and ian Buruma for their insights and sugges-
tions. We would also like to thank ceu’s President and
rector yehuda elkana for his support in project activities.
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introduction
Ivan Krastev
When in 1941 in a Life magazine editorial its publisher
henry Luce coined the phrase “The American century”
nobody knew how the world viewed America and its poli-
cies. The age of the opinion polls—this opium for the peo-
ple—was not born yet. A son of a missionary and a vision-
ary himself, henry Luce urged the united States to forsake
isolationism for a missionary’s role, acting as the world’s
Good Samaritan and spreading democracy and freedom.
And his call for creating the “first great American centu-
ry” was heard. For more than half a century many people
thought the uS as the savior of the Western world. The
world was fascinated with America’s democracy, technol-
ogy and culture. The 20th century turned into the Amer-
ican century. But the American century is now over. in
less than a decade, America has lost more moral self-confi-
dence and credibility than most nations accumulate in their
history. Anti-Americanism is becoming a defining feature
of our time. it is a defining political issue in a world that
is suffering not from a deficit of elections but from a defi-
cit of politics. The hollowness of post-ideological and post-
utopian politics, its subversive dullness, is transforming the
nature of democratic regimes. And in this post-political
world anti-Americanism is more and more the content of
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