How the World Was Won - The Americanization of Everything /anglais - Couverture rigide

In this dazzling new book, cultural critic and historian Peter Conrad tells the story of the spectacular rise and subsequent waning of American influence across the world since 1945. Politics, war and commerce form the inevitable backdrop to his tale, but Conrad also treats us to a kaleidoscopic presentation of Americas unstoppable creativity: its output of great, good and enjoyably bad art, of jeans and jazz, fast food and fridges, space travel, comic books and motorbikes, technologies and therapies, along with the heroic, erotic or violent cinematic visions that have Americanized even our dreams.

Table of Contents

1 Looking to America
2 A Coming of Age
3 The Meaning of America 324 Have We Any Friends?
5 Prosperity or Tragedy
6 Master of the Earth
7 American Girls in Italy and Elsewhere
8 Free-Enterprise Art
9 Americanophilia
10 On the Roads
11 Americanize Yourselves!
12 Little America
13 Astronauts and Assassins
14 I Want it to Come HERE!
15 Nether Americas
16 B-Day and Other Invasions
17 Dialogues with Consumer Products
18 The Campaign to Free America
19 Why Do They Hate Us?
20 Thanks, America 1
Acknowledgments
Index

Conrad provides an entertaining and informative insight into America's seductive appeal. --The Sunday Times, Ian Critchley

This is the true outline of our times. --Observer

Thought-provoking ... enjoyable. --Times Literary Supplement

Conrad is one of a glittering generation of Australians cast on to the seas of world culture in the 1960s. --Observer

Conrad unrolls the 20th century like a giant canvas and takes us on a provocative, enjoyable romp through its quarrels, rivalries and vanities ... an absorbing and highly accessible book. Conrad is a gifted reader of the hidden codes that reveal a culture, a light-touch critic who tells his story well ... an affectionate, comprehensive survey of the art and popular culture of a century. --The Irish Times

A magisterial story, never before told in such an intelligent and, essentially, sympathetic manner. --Prospect