Decentering America

"Decentering" has fast become a dynamic approach to the study of American cultural and diplomatic history. But what precisely does decentering mean, how does it work, and why has it risen to such prominence? This book addresses the attempt to decenter the United States in the history of culture and international relations both in times when the United States has been assumed to take center place. Rather than presenting more theoretical perspectives, this collection offers a variety of examples of how one can look at the role of culture in international history without assigning the central role to the United States. Topics include cultural violence, inverted Americanization, the role of NGOs, modernity and internationalism, and the culture of diplomacy. Each subsection includes two case studies dedicated to one particular approach which while not dealing with the same geographical topic or time frame illuminate a similar methodological interest. Collectively, these essays pragmatically demonstrate how the study of culture and international history can help us to rethink and reconceptualize US history today.

"Decentering" has fast become a dynamic approach to the study of American cultural and diplomatic history. But what precisely does decentering mean, how does it work, and why has it risen to such prominence? This book addresses the attempt to decenter the United States in the history of culture and international relations both in times when the United States has been assumed to take center place. Rather than presenting more theoretical perspectives, this collection offers a variety of examples of how one can look at the role of culture in international history without assigning the central role to the United States. Topics include cultural violence, inverted Americanization, the role of NGOs, modernity and internationalism, and the culture of diplomacy. Each subsection includes two case studies dedicated to one particular approach which while not dealing with the same geographical topic or time frame illuminate a similar methodological interest. Collectively, these essays pragmatically demonstrate how the study of culture and international history can help us to rethink and reconceptualize US history today.

List of Illustrations
Editor’s Preface
List of Contributors

Introduction: Decentering American history
Jessica C. E. Gienow-Hecht

PART I: INVERTING AMERICANIZATION

Chapter 1. Who said "Americanization"? The case of twentieth-century advertising and mass marketing from a British perspective
Stefan Schwarzkopf

Chapter 2. Die antideutsche welle: The anti-German wave, public diplomacy, and intercultural relations in Cold War America
Brian C. Etheridge

PART II: INTERNATIONALISM

Chapter 3. Chinese debates on modernization and the west after the Great War
Dominic Sachsenmaier

Chapter 4. "For the genuine culture of the Americas": Musical folklore, popular arts, and the cultural politics of Pan-Americanism, 1933–50
Corinne A. Pernet

PART III: NON-GOVERNMENTAL INFLUENCES

Chapter 5. "The other side of the war": Memory and meaning at the war Remnants Museum of Vietnam
Scott Laderman

Chapter 6. Americanized protests? The British and West German protests against nuclear weapons and the pacifist roots of the West German new left, 1957–64
Holger Nehring

PART IV: CULTURAL VIOLENCE

Chapter 7. Misperceptions of empire: How Berlin and Washington misread the "ordinary Germans" of Latin America in World War II Max
Paul Friedman

Chapter 8. Rape and murder in the canal zone: Cultural conflict and the US military presence in Panama, 1955–56
Michael E. Donoghue

PART V: DECENTERING THE WORLD? THE CULTURE OF DIPLOMACY

Chapter 9. The marriage of Thames and Rhine: Reflections on the English-Palatine relations 1608–32 and the culture of diplomacy in early modern Europe
Magnus Rüde

Chapter 10. Self-perception, the official attitude toward pacifism, and great power détente: Reflections on diplomatic culture before World War I
Friedrich Kießling

Notes on contributors
Bibliography
Index