Russell Berman, Anti-Americanism in Europe: A Cultural Problem, Hoover Institution Press, 2004. Stanford humanities professor Berman argues Europe’s anti-Americanism and negative views on US policies can be traced to a larger cultural phenomenon with roots in internal factors: the end of the need for the protection of US troops, anti-Americanism’s value as an ideology to define a new European identity, the acting out of local issues, and the movement against globalization. (Courtesy of Nicholas Imparato)
David Caute. The Dancer Defects: The Struggle for Cultural Supremacy During the Cold War, Oxford University Press, 2004. A lengthy (788 pp.) history of a cultural contest shaped by ideology, global media, rival claims to a shared Enlightenment tradition, and the influence of writers, dancers, playwrights, poets, artists, musicians, film-makers, arts organizations, and government agencies on aesthetic and propaganda debates within and between the US and the Soviet Union.
Michael Kimmelman’s review (“The Cold War Over the Arts,” The New York Review of Books, May 27, 2004, pp. 33-35) calls Caute’s “excellent” book “a sane rebuke to . . . that revisionist generation of American cultural critics . . . [who allege] a web of capitalist intrigue involving Abstract Expressionism, with its rhetoric of heroic individualism; the Rockefeller family, which had helped to found the Museum of Modern Art; the United States Information Agency, which exported American culture; and the CIA.” (USIA alumni will enjoy a 1977 photo of Rudolph Nureyev in the Capitol with three “young” lawmakers, Rep. Dante Fascell and Senators Patrick Leahy and Bob Dole.)
John Lewis Gaddis. Surprise, Security, and the American Experience, Harvard University Press, 2004. In this brief, well written book Yale historian Gaddis examines America’s response to 9/11; US national security strategy; and preemption, hegemony, and consent as long standing themes in American history. Gaddis argues the US should seek to “make the world safe for federalism” and offers thoughts on balancing leadership with alliances and ways to wield power while minimizing arrogance.
Glenn Guzzo. “First Person: Thinking Big,” American Journalism Review, June/July 2004. The former editor of the Denver Post believes the definition of local news has changed. The Post expanded its overseas staff and finds covering international stories can pay for regional papers.
Stephen Johnson and Helle Dale. Iraqi Prisoner Crisis: Correcting America’s Communication Failure, The Heritage Foundation, June 2, 2004. Johnson and Dale find the US has no comprehensive public diplomacy strategy for Iraq and that coordination of America’s global public diplomacy is in disarray. Their paper includes recommendations on making better communication a Presidential priority, improving military public affairs operations in Iraq, developing a military-civilian public diplomacy strategy, and strengthening public diplomacy leadership at State.
Sunil Khilnani. “Nehru’s Faith: India’s Contribution to Liberalism,” The New Republic, May 24, 2004, pp. 27-33. Johns Hopkins SAIS professor Khilnani reviews Katherine Frank’s new biography of Jawaharlal Nehru and discusses Nehru’s efforts to find a “non-religious bedrock” for practical politics and morality. Khilnani examines Nehru’s views on reason, politics, religion, and tolerance as expressed in his books and letters from prison.
Sook-Jong Lee. “Growing Anti-US Sentiments Roil an Old Alliance with South Korea,” YaleGlobal Online, June 8, 2004. Memories of America’s defense of South Korea and deployment of South Korean troops to Iraq notwithstanding, Lee finds “the massive wave of anti-American feelings that have accompanied recent US actions in Iraq and South Korea is unprecedented in Korean history.”
David Morey and Scott Miller. The Underdog Advantage: Using the Power of Insurgent Strategy to Put Your Business on Top, McGraw-Hill, 2004. David Morey, DMG CEO and Public Diplomacy Council member, and his partner Scott Miller offer pratical strategic communication advice to business, political, military, and organization leaders. Their insurgency model and understanding of the information environment draw on their work as consultants to political campagins abroad, to US Congressional and gubernatorial campaigns, and to corporate clients.
Pew Research Center. Views of a Changing World 2003: War With Iraq Further Divides Global Publics, June 3, 2004. New findings from the Pew Global Attitudes Project show that opinions of the US are markedly lower than a year ago. “The war has widened the rift between Americans and Western Europeans, further inflamed the Muslim world, softened support for the war on terrorism, and significantly weakened global public support for . . . the U.N. and the North Atlantic alliance.”
William A. Rugh. Arab Mass Media: Newspapers, Radio, and Television in Arab Politics, Praeger, 2004. Former AMIDEAST President and Public Diplomacy Council member Rugh provides a comprehensive examination of Arab print, radio, and television media and how they function in the political and social structures of 18 Arab countries. Topics include liberalizing trends in Arab media, a typology of media environments, “off shore” pan-Arab print media, and his reasoning on why Arabs are not likely to use Internet-based technologies in the near future.
William A. Rugh. “Comments on Radio Sawa and al Hurra Television,” Statement to the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, April 29, 2004. Ambassador Rugh describes the Arab broadcasting environment and discusses Arab reactions to US government Arabic language broadcasting initiatives.
Shibley Telhami. “Hearing on the Broadcasting Board of Governors: Finding the Right Media for the Message in the Middle East,” Statement to the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, April 29, 2004. University of Maryland Professor Telhami offers five perspectives on the role of the US government’s al Hurra television station, contends al Hurra will not gain a significant market share in the Middle East, and compares al Hurra with limited spending on other public diplomacy initiatives.
Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Broadcasting Board of Governors: Finding the Right Media for the Message in the Middle East, April 29, 2004. Includes online statements by Senator Joseph Biden; BBG Chair Kenneth Tomlinson; BBG member Norman Pattiz; Mouafac Harb, News Director, al Hurra; Jess Ford, General Accounting Office; Shibley Telhami, University of Maryland; William Rugh, Associate, Institute for the Study of Diplomacy, Georgetown University; and Edmund Ghareeb, School of International Service, American University.
Anne-Marie Slaughter. A New World Order, Princeton University Press, 2004. The Dean of Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs harnesses ten years of work on global networks and global governance. In her analysis, states are still the most important international actors, but states increasingly are disaggregated into component institutions, which interact with foreign counterparts through horizontal networks of national government officials. Slaughter examines the implications of her thesis for changing concepts of sovereignty, national security, the global economy, the environment and other issues — and for the projection of soft power and conduct of diplomacy.
Tom Wolfe. “McLuhan’s New World,” The Wilson Quarterly, Spring, 2004, pp. 18-25. Novelist Tom Wolfe reflects on the continuing impact of McLuhan’s thinking and the intellectual influences he frequently acknowleged (Harold Innes) and did not acknowlege (Teilhard de Chardin). Wolfe discusses McLuhan’s “tremendous debt” to Teilhard’s concept of “noosphere” and the reasons McLuhan never made this debt public.