| Review of: | Remaking France: Americanization, Public Diplomacy, and the Marshall Plan by Brian Angus McKenzie |
|---|---|
| Reviewed By: | Christopher Endy |
| Reviewed in: | Diplomatic History |
| Date accepted online: | 14/01/2008 |
| Published in print: | Volume 31, Issue 04, Pages 761-764 |
Book Review: The Empire Sneaks Back
The concept of cultural imperialism has in recent years fallen in name, but not necessarily in spirit. Critics of the idea, such as John Tomlinson, Rob Kroes, Richard Pells, and Jessica Gienow-Hecht, have taught us to look not for cultural conquest but instead for a more nuanced process of negotiation, adaptation, and "cultural transfer." These critics have shown that cultural imperialism errs because it denies agency to local cultures, assumes an oppressive process, and reduces cultural history to a subsidiary function of geopolitics and economics. As an alternative, the notion of cultural transfer usefully highlights how cultures interact via mutual exchange, not one-sided imposition. Yet this more neutral phrase also has its limits. It does not in itself convey why some kinds of transfer happen while others do not. Nor does it tell us what we should think of these exchanges. Cultural imperialism, despite its flaws, at least attempted to address these concerns. Perhaps for this reason, some historians have recently sought to refine the core features of cultural imperialism. Most notably, Victoria de Grazia has argued for the existence of an American "market empire" that pressured Europeans into adopting American norms. [1]
Brian Angus McKenzie does not go as far as de Grazia in referring to empire, but his new study of U.S. public diplomacy in postwar France also calls attention to the more coercive pressures lurking behind cultural transfer. In a lively theoretical introduction, McKenzie argues that scholars such as Pells and Kroes overstate the freedom of West Europeans, especially in the midtwentieth century, to select and adapt American culture. McKenzie proposes instead a "political economy" approach, which "has the benefit of showing which voices were privileged and which were silenced" (p. 11). Cultural transformation in postwar Europe, he argues, involved more than the creative exchange of media signifiers. It also relied on U.S. political and economic power, forging what McKenzie calls "the material transformation of culture" (p. 7). McKenzie might not call this "imperial," but one still hears echoes of the 1977
To McKenzie, the crucial context that amplified American voices derived from French politicians' desire for U.S. economic assistance. This need forced the French Fourth Republic to accept a bilateral aid agreement that gave the U.S. government the ability to conduct propaganda within France. One provision even required the French government to help publicize Marshall Plan aid in France. The French state managed to reassert some control by allocating only modest amounts to Marshall Plan publicity. Even so, the aid agreement meant that French officials had to tolerate U.S. propaganda that trumpeted American models of productivity, consumerism, and labor relations.
Having established the importance of political economy, McKenzie dedicates the bulk of his book to Mission France, the U.S. agency that administered the Marshall Plan in France. Specific chapters detail Mission France's attempts to remake French agriculture, labor relations, tourism, and magazines. Some of McKenzie's strongest examples of how economic and political power helped broadcast American values come in his chapter on postwar print media. McKenzie's archival research persuasively shows that the "free market" of ideas turned out to be a less-than-level playing field. When
Much of the book describes the information exhibits that Mission France organized in French cities, villages, and trade shows. According to McKenzie, these exhibits spread a powerful image of American modernity, even if they often failed to win French support for U.S. policy. McKenzie's conclusions here reveal an ironic sensibility. Mass-produced pamphlets celebrating the size of the Marshall Plan encouraged French critics to blame Americans for the persistent shortcomings of the French economy. As one U.S. official belatedly discovered, "You cannot have it both ways: if it is the Marshall Plan that is to be given the credit for France's recovery, ...then it must also be the Marshall Plan that must bear the responsibility" for economic frustrations (p. 171). Mission France labor programs also failed to marginalize Communists in French unions and instead reinforced stereotypes about American materialism.
McKenzie's fluid integration of U.S. and French politics successfully conveys the challenges of public diplomacy. Some of Mission France's failures reflected U.S. diplomats' narrow anti-Communist thinking, but other frustrations would have beset even the most open-minded expert. For instance, Mission France propagandists could hardly win over French unions when more powerful U.S. diplomats, preoccupied with inflation, pressured the French to keep wages low. U.S. propaganda even undermined the domestic legitimacy of the French government that Americans were trying to support as a Cold War ally. When the benefits of U.S. aid did not seem to reach average households, French citizens often concluded that French officials were misusing the funds. In towns with strong Communist movements, some mayors dreaded the arrival of U.S. propaganda displays, which could spark divisive local debates and even riots.
At the same time, McKenzie perhaps overemphasizes the ironic consequences of U.S. propaganda. He concludes that "the millions of dollars spent on pro-American propaganda failed to decrease French ambivalence toward the United States" (p. 215). McKenzie proves this claim, but what if ambivalence was all the United States needed to obtain its goals? Ambivalence, after all, was not a coherent call to reject U.S. influence. In a broader perspective, even Americans back home expressed reservations with American-style modernity, including the same worries over excessive materialism that bothered many French observers. [3] In France, as in the United States, ambivalence over American-style modernity could signify intimacy and accommodation, which, in the big picture, was exactly what U.S. policymakers sought from their European allies. The American way did not need to be loved, just tolerated. Still, McKenzie's critique remains valid in the sense that U.S. officials did hope for a more enthusiastic reception from the French, and by this standard they generally failed.
For all McKenzie's insight into public diplomacy, the book faces limits when it attempts to assess the Americanizing impact of U.S. information programs on French society. McKenzie himself recognizes that a focus on political economy "as an approach for studying Americanization" leaves unanswered questions relating to "the transfer of values" (p. 10). Nevertheless, McKenzie also asserts that "U.S. public diplomacy did indeed make a deep impact" and "created [in France] a
In sum, McKenzie's book is a skillful, bi-archival examination of the perils of public diplomacy. Finely attuned to the ironies of trying to mold public opinion in another country,
[1]Victoria de Grazia,
[2]Quoted in Gienow-Hecht, "Cultural Transfer," 264.
[3]For example, historian David M. Potter, in his 1954 book,
[4]On French hotels, see Christopher Endy,