Soyin Milka

Hi,

I've been searching for reading material on the anti-american sentiment in Europe and, conversely, the anti-european sentiment in America, especially the anti-french sentiment. I'm trying to understand the historical roots of these sentiments and to make sense of them.

So far, my quest has been rather futile. It's hard to find something writen about the anti-french sentiment that has not been written by people who are themselves obviously either anti-french or anti-american...

The best I found is this:
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/16059

It mainly discusses the anti-european sentiment in America but offers some interesting ideas about the other sentiments. It's scholarly and not too biased, although the author presents a case showing anti-europeanism as bad for America.

I'm hoping some posters here could suggest me some reading about this topic. I'm really curious about the history of boycotts between America and Europe and their effectiveness too, if anyone can share links to interesting material about it.

Thanks,

Soyin

Soyin Milka

Oh,

If anyone takes the time to read the article I linked, the Bush quote in it is an urban legend. It tells something that it got printed in the London Times and anti-americanism in Britain..

http://66.165.133.65/quotes/bush.htm

"According to scuttlebutt that emerged in the British press in July 2002, President Bush, Britain's Prime Minister Tony Blair, and France's President Jacques Chirac were discussing economics and, in particular, the decline of the French economy. "The problem with the French," Bush afterwards confided in Blair, "is that they don't have a word for entrepreneur." "

Not a real quote!

Soyin

winterwooskie

i think the reason there is so much anti-french sentiment is because we have never really beaten them at anything to satisfy ourselves. we are not banning german products and i wonder if it is because of the satisfaction that americans have because we won WWII. the same goes with russia. we beat them over the cold war thing by having their country break up so we don't have any need to feel above them.

does anyone know if the french helped during the last iraq war? if so, it's funny no one is mentioning it.

sullster

Yes, the French did send some military units during the last war and sent some Francs.

Monkeybot

I think a big part of the reason is that we simply don't have a big French (or French-descended) part of the population. We've had influxes of Germans, Irish, Italians, Chinese, Mexicans, etc... and I think there's just not the same sense of like, open animosity towards these groups as there is towards the French. If you make fun of the Germans, there's going to be a segment of the population that gets pissed. Ditto for the Italians -- they just got mad about the Sopranos. You make fun of the French, there just aren't as many people around to get on your case about it.

If it's anti-Europeanism in general, I'd say that comes mostly out of a sense of pride. "Why should we listen to them?" is pretty much how it tends to be phrased...

Ion

'Entrepreneur' is a French word.

If this was really said by Bush, then I say that Bush is dumb.

If this was not really said by Bush, then I still say that Bush is dumb based on other examples of Bush stupidity.

It's easy for many people to be a better president than Bush is, just by using common sense.

Answerer

I thought you guys should be more concerned with anti-Americanism coming from all over the world.

ieyeasu

Heck, I'm worried that there isn't enough anti americanism here. People have locked step so much that you have to get "American" cheese on your sandwich, or they look at you funny.
[/exaggeration]

But really, people aren't questioning their nationalism enough. People are starting to equate "doesn't agree with us" to "bad people". Starting to freak me out a bit. Hope there's room in Europe, I might be moving.