Past Events
- Edinburgh International Book Festival 2005
- Visions of America
- From American dream to anti-American nightmare?
- Venue: Edinburgh International Book Festival, Charlotte Square, Edinburgh
- Date: August 24, 2005
- Time: 7.30pm
- Tickets: £8 (£6 concs)
- Booking: Call 0131 624 5050 or visit the festival website
America appears to be out of fashion in the world today. As the foremost Western capitalist nation, America exhibits the excitement and liberating power of modernity alongside its pitfalls and limitations. But in Europe, it is rarely the dream of freedom and prosperity that is recognised, but rather the nightmarish vision of an all-oppressive power, exploiting the poor at home and abroad. Even at home, Michael Moore's films, brim full of national self-loathing, have a popular resonance amongst American audiences.
Is contemporary anti-Americanism a genuine critique of a reckless superpower, or does it express a broader anti-modernism? Is the hostility limited to George W Bush and his administration's foreign policy, or has the world lost faith in the more positive promise of the American dream? Whereas once the New York skyline was seen as the symbol of the modern age, often it seems to be these very qualities of bigness, boldness, and energy that are now routinely disparaged. How healthy is this broad climate of anti-Americanism?
Speakers include
- Daniel Ben-Ami
- financial journalist, author of 'Cowardly Capitalism: The Myth of The Global Financial Casino'
- Avedon Carol
- Feminists Against Censorship; American online journalist living in London and writing about US politics
- Joyce McMillan
- columnist and theatre critic, the Scotsman
- Dominic Sandbrook
- senior fellow at the Rothermere American Institute, Oxford University; author of 'Eugene McCarthy and the Rise and Fall of Postwar American Liberalism' and 'Never Had It So Good: A History of Britain from Suez to the Beatles'
Chair
- Claire Fox
- director, Institute of Ideas; panellist on BBC Radio 4’s Moral Maze