Introduction

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
George Blaustein
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
William Faulkner ◽  
Cultural Diplomacy ◽  
Ralph Ellison ◽  
Military Occupation ◽  
Simone De Beauvoir ◽  
Mary Mccarthy ◽  
American Century ◽  
Henry Luce ◽  
Unpublished Manuscripts

As “American dream” became a cliché in the twentieth century, the contrary refrain of American nightmare was probably inevitable. This book adopts the phrase “nightmare envy” to capture an atmosphere of transatlantic disparity, projection, recrimination, and longing. But the phrase’s ambiguity is deliberate: it isn’t always clear who is envying whom, or for what reason. Examples from Margaret Mead, David Potter, Mary McCarthy, Simone de Beauvoir, and William Faulkner offer variations on the theme. Nightmare Envy and Other Stories proposes an “Americanist century” that stands in curious tension with the American Century heralded by Henry Luce in 1941. The protagonists are the Americanists who negotiated the imperatives of military occupation and cultural diplomacy in Europe, as well as Japan. The introduction closes with one of the paradigmatic figures of the Americanist century, Ralph Ellison, and offers an interpretation of his European fictions, as well as previously unpublished manuscripts.

British and German Business and Politics under the Pax Americana, 1941–1957

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Volker R. Berghahn
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Eastern Europe ◽  
The United States ◽  
Economic Organization ◽  
Business Relationship ◽  
The Third ◽  
American Century ◽  
Henry Luce

This chapter examines the third round in the German–American–British business relationship from 1941 to 1957. It begins with an account of Hitler's activities in Eastern Europe, before turning to the magazine article published by American businessman Henry Luce, entitled, “The American Century.” This article postulated that, if the twentieth century had not been an American one in its first half, the United States should at least make every effort to realize this idea in its second half, and shape a peace for the rest of the twentieth century that was based on American principles of sociopolitical and economic organization. From here, the chapter discusses the role of American big business in postwar and Cold War periods, the question of cartels, economic reconstruction, and others.

The hiatus of history

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Salvatore Babones
Keyword(s):  
Historical Analysis ◽  
World System ◽  
Low Fertility ◽  
Homogeneous State ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Interstate Relations ◽  
End Of History ◽  
American Century ◽  
The End Of History ◽  
Henry Luce

When Henry Luce famously called the twentieth century the "American Century," he strongly implied that it was the "first" American century (i.e., not the only one). Subsequent commentators have misunderstood Luce because they have failed to identify the relevant "width of a time point" for world-historical analysis. World-historical trends unfold over centuries, not decades. Demographic change is also slow but sure. China's low fertility rate means that China's population will soon by declining. By 2100 China may have roughly the same population as the Anglo-Saxon core of the American Tianxia. Francis Fukuyama's famous "end of history" is thus much more stable than he has subsequently maintained. The American Tianxia is the universal homogeneous state that Fukuyama once claimed was to be found at the end of history. The Pax Americana of the American Tianxia is very stable because it is based on personal incentives, not interstate relations. It constitutes a new, postmodern world-system, the millennial world-system, that is likely to last for several centuries.

'Glocalization' as a Key to the Interplay between Christianity and Asian Cultures: The Vision of Francis Wei in Early Twentieth Century China

2007 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 101-111 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Tze Ming Ng
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Chinese Culture ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Early Twentieth Century ◽  
World Christianity ◽  
Henry Luce ◽  
The Way

AbstractThis article aims to apply the concept of 'glocalization' to the study of theology and culture. China is chosen as a case study, with particular focus on a Chinese theologians discussion of the interplay between Christianity and Chinese Culture in the early twentieth century China. Francis Wei was the first Chinese President of Huazhong University in Wuhan, 1929–1952, and he was appointed as the first Henry Luce Visiting Professor of World Christianity in 1945–46. Wei's conviction was that Christianity and Chinese culture could be complementary. He held that China needed Christianity for a better understanding of God's nature and the way human beings could communicate with God, while maintaining that Christianity needed China to move beyond western denominationalism. Moreover, Christianity could not become a universal religion without including China. This article argues that Wei's work is relevant to the contemporary discussion about interaction between globalization and localization, known as 'glocalization'.

Cultural Diplomacy and International Cultural Relations in Twentieth-Century Europe

2016 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 373-385 ◽  
Author(s):  
CHARLOTTE FAUCHER
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Soft Power ◽  
Cultural Diplomacy ◽  
Transnational History ◽  
Diplomatic History ◽  
Synthetic Approach ◽  
Cultural Relations ◽  
Fourth Volume ◽  
National Boundaries ◽  
Twentieth Century Europe

In a 2004 review essay on transnational history published in the pages of this journal, Akira Iriye discussed the ‘internationalisation of scholarship’ and concluded that ‘historians easily cross oceans and traverse national boundaries’. The books under review here offer a striking example of this internationalisation, not only in their geographical remit but equally in the transnational interests and collaboration of their authors. Three of them are edited volumes – which, in their showcasing of different approaches, methodologies and topics, are particularly suited to addressing the hybrid nature of cultural diplomacy. Their rich variety of case studies reveals the interplay of micro and macro history, as well as the complex relations between local, national and transnational, as well as between governmental and non-governmental historical actors. The fourth volume is a jointly authored work by François Chaubet and Laurent Martin that presents a synthetic approach to cultural exchange, the relations between culture and policy and cultural globalisation. Together these recent books represent the evolution of a cultural approach to diplomatic history and international relations, epitomised by an interest in ‘soft power’ and closely shaped by the development of transnational history, entangled history (histoire croisée) and the study of cultural transfers. As such, they allow a more cumulative consideration of the roles and meanings of cultural diplomacy in twentieth-century Europe.

Representative Man: John Brown and the Politics of Redemption in Russell Banks's Cloudsplitter

2006 ◽  
Vol 41 (1) ◽  
pp. 67-82 ◽  
Author(s):  
ANTHONY HUTCHISON
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
William Faulkner ◽  
David Foster Wallace ◽  
American Writer ◽  
White American ◽  
The Past ◽  
John Brown ◽  
Russell Banks ◽  
American Authors

Aside from William Faulkner it is difficult to think of a white twentieth-century American writer who has negotiated the issue of race in as sustained, unflinching and intelligent a fashion as Russell Banks. Whilst the impulse to produce novels on the grand scale shows little sign of diminishing, authors opting to place race at the very centre of their great American fictions remain relatively rare. With a couple of notable exceptions, most of the major works produced by white American authors over the past decade – whether by elder statesmen such as Updike, DeLillo or Pynchon or younger writers such as Jonathan Franzen and David Foster Wallace – appear to quarantine the topic.

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