Not like us

by Richard H. Pells

It is a common experience for Americans traveling in Europe to discover that the cultural icons of the United States have followed them across the Atlantic. On the billboards are Michael Jordan and Arnold Schwarzenegger, on the television are Seinfeld and Friends, and on the radio are Garth Brooks and Madonna. Much has been written about the influence of McDonald's or about the "Coca-colonization" of the world, but in Not Like Us, the eminent historian Richard Pells examines the more subtle and intriguing interplay between America and Europe in the decades since the end of World War II. In a masterful analysis of the past fifty years, Pells describes how the cultures on each side of the Atlantic have transformed one another, and he reveals the reasons why the Europeans never became truly "Americanized" and why it was a good thing that they didn't.