Stars and gripes: Plots about America
With protests against Donald Trump taking place across the United States and in some other countries, timely excerpts from This Week, Those Books. Sign up at https://thisweekthosebooks.substack.com/ and get the post and readthrough the day it drops
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The Big Story:
America is on everyone’s mind — for good or ill… a unique stars and gripes canvas, totally different from any previous global response to America.
…An unusual kind of anti-Americanism is sweeping some parts of the world, notably Canada, Britain, South Africa and much of Europe. Part disgust, part disappointment, it is triggered by what is seen as the Trump administration’s arrogance, greed and unethical approach…
These books offer crucial context:
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The Back Story:
An anti-American European once complained the US is so unnatural and inauthentic “even its garbage is clean”. It was an obvious exaggeration but a symptom of a broader problem for America:
The Ugly American, a 1958 novel that had 20 printings and was made into a movie, presented Americans as bumbling, disdainful and corrupt…
As one of this week’s books notes, “much of the profound aversion to America has been produced by the belief that great opportunities have been squandered, with a resounding failure to live up to splendid ideals”. Cue Gaza, Ukraine?
Careless People
By: Sarah Wynn-Williams
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Year and date: March 11, 2025
We bought the Kindle version of this book for $16.99 just as soon as it was out, so you didn’t have to…
This is the story of a non-American insider at a very American company with true blue American instincts and biases. Sarah Wynn-Williams, a New Zealand diplomat based in the US, became a convert to Facebook’s cause because she truly, madly, deeply believed the social media platform would change the world for the better…eventually, she and Facebook parted ways and thoroughly disillusioned, she wrote this book. Facebook (now Meta) has legally stopped2 Wynn-Williams from promoting her book because it claims it is “false and defamatory (and) should never have been published”.
And yet Wynn-Williams’ account does feel relevant in this moment of global ferment about America. It tells us how this new world company views the planet and its own mission (just a business, make money). And it confirms that this company constantly falls back into defensive positions that presume on its American privilege…
Choice quotes:
Facebook’s American leadership believes the “values” it defines can trump [overseas] national laws when they conflict.
…
The ethos of Facebook, like America, is one of rugged individualism right down to the product, which personalizes, atomizes, and weaponizes despite being based on community and networks.
The Plot Against America
By: Philip Roth
Publisher: Houghton Miflin Company
Year: 2004
The grand old man of American letters wrote this alternative history of America after 9/11, when the George W Bush administration had triggered massive bouts of anti-Americanism everywhere. Philip Roth explores a ‘what if’ scenario. What if aviator Charles Lindbergh had won the presidency in 1940, defeating Franklin Delano Roosevelt? What if Lindbergh’s win means America sides with Nazi Germany in World War II? What if authoritarianism comes to America? What if anti-Semitism gets normalised and it becomes ok to be violent and racist?
Roth, who died in 2018, midway through Trump’s first term, once noted the differences between the MAGA president and Lindbergh. The latter, Roth said, had been a real hero, the man whose solo flight across the Atlantic in 1927 opened up a new world. “Trump, by comparison, is a massive fraud, the evil sum of his deficiencies”.
Choice quotes:
And how long will the American people stand for this treachery perpetrated by their elected president? How long will Americans remain asleep while their cherished Constitution is torn to shreds?
Others? He dares to call us others? He’s the other. The one who looks most American — and he’s the one who is least American! The man is unfit. He shouldn’t be there. He shouldn’t be there, and it’s as simple as that!
Understanding Anti-Americanism: Its Origins and Impact at Home and Abroad
By: Paul Hollander
Publisher: Ivan R. Dee
Year: 2004
These essays, by experts from different parts of political spectrum, are edited by Hungarian-born sociologist Paul Hollander. They take as a starting point the post-9/11 rise in anti-American sentiment globally, distinguishing between the ‘irrational’ rejection of the entire American value system and outright hatred of the US…
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