Not Like Us By Richard Pells: Book Review

Richard Pells, a history professor at the University of Texas, wrote Not Like Us: How Europeans have loved, hated, and transformed American culture since World War II in an effort to explain the relationship between Europe and the United States after the wars. After providing the reader with some background information of World War I, World War II, and the time in between, Pells focuses on the European views of America, the export of American culture, and the influence Europe had on the States, and how all of those things have changed in the decades after World War II. Europe, as Pells says, has a long standing history of looking down on America. Europeans viewed America, with its comparatively short history and excessive confidence, as “as

Even McDonald’s was not exempt from Europe’s influence, changing the menus in its global locations to better fit its customers, offering “insalata caprese rather than french fries” (305) to please its Italian customers or salmon burgers in Norway. Europe’s influence even impacted Walt Disney, who the first Disney theme park off of a European park, Tivoli. After the Vietnam War, America was ruined in the eyes of many and Europeans “doubted whether the United States had any ideals at all” (313). Europe, having regained some stability, became a leading power again. When American consumers tired with the goods produced in the States, they turned to Europe and Japan for better products, like Italian leather and Japanese televisions. Academics were again influenced by the French and the Germans. Europe’s professors were crossing the pond to lecture stateside. The most popular music was being produced in Britain by the Beatles and the Rolling Stones and British television series were being aired in America. European entrepreneurs began investing in America, including Rupert Murdoch who purchased 20th Century Fox. What once seemed like a one-way exchange was now a competitive