The Eagle's Shadow: Why America Fascinates And Infuriates The World by Mark Hertsgaard

From the Publisher

What America looks like to the rest of the world

Americans rarely used to think about the outside world. As the mightiest nation in history, the United States could do as it pleased. Now Americans have learned the hard way that what outsiders think matters. When terror struck last September 11, author Mark Hertsgaard was completing a trip around the world, gathering perceptions about America from people in fifteen countries. Whether sophisticated business leaders, starry-eyed teenagers, or Islamic fundamentalists, his subjects felt both admiring and uneasy about the United States, enchanted yet bewildered, appalled yet envious.

This complex catalogue of impressions--good, bad, but never indifferent--is the departure point for a short, pointed essay in the tradition of Common Sense and The Fate of the Earth. How can the world's most open society be so proud of its founding ideals yet so inconsistent in applying them? So loved for its pop culture but so resented for its high-handedness? Exploring such paradoxes, Hertsgaard exposes uplifting and uncomfortable truths that force natives and outsiders alike to see America with fresh eyes.

"Like it or not, America is the future," a European tells Hertsgaard. In a world growing more American by the day, The Eagle's Shadow is a major statement about and to the place everyone discusses but few understand.

Publishers Weekly

In May 2001, Hertsgaard (Earth Odyssey: Around the World in Search of Our Environmental Future) began a six-month journey through 15 countries to interview people of all sorts, from bus drivers to former parliamentarians, about one thing: the United States. Each chapter of his book opens with an anecdote illustrating a perception he found to be widespread: the United States is a land of vast wealth but also gross self-indulgence; American leaders are influential but arrogant and na ve; and American citizens have immense freedom but are nonetheless insulated and ignorant. The impressions Hertsgaard gathers, however, serve primarily as springboards from which he plunges into his own blunt, sometimes dour analysis of American attitudes, practices and institutions. Hertsgaard at one point tells of a Cuban boy he met after America's presidential elections. "It sounds like you are having trouble with your democracy in the United States," the boy teases. "Perhaps Cuba should send you election observers next time." The wisecrack is an apt introduction to Hertsgaard's interpretation of the Florida ballot impasse, which he thinks exemplifies the faults of America's democratic process. If Hertsgaard's strength lies in elaborating upon foreigners' perceptions, however, his weakness lies in the way he addresses his readers. "I know that parts of this book will be difficult for some Americans to hear," he writes, in a tone a bit too superior. Agents, Ellen Levine and Diana Finch. (Oct.) Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.

Foreign Affairs

In Hertsgaard's opinion, the United States is much too much like Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Although very good at slaying vampires and in possession of a certain fresh charm, Buffy spends too much time at the mall and neglects her history and geography texts. She is not careful enough about recycling; she refuses to take foreign languages; and she cares only about superficial student activities such as cheerleading and the prom. For his research, Hertsgaard traveled around the world and found that foreigners largely agree with him about the United States: interesting culture, nice democracy, but too many "red" (that is, Republican) states. The result is a mix of quirky quotes from foreigners and drearily predictable lectures from Hertsgaard. In his opinion, "Our foreign policy is often arrogant and cruel. ... Our democracy is an embarrassment to the world. ... Our economy is dividing us into rich and poor, our signature cultural activities are shopping and watching television." People who share such sentiments and enjoy repetition will like this book very much. But here is the trouble: Buffy will not pay attention to Hertsgaard, ever. Uncle Henry David Thoreau read Buffy the same sermon back in junior high. She ignored Thoreau with no trouble at all; she will not change her ways for Hertsgaard. No, fun is still Buffy's plan. She cannot speak French or pass civics, but she has gotten very, very good at the whole slaying thing.

Kirkus Reviews

A verbal thrashing from a journalist who visited many countries and discovered that even as they adopt our pop culture and consume our Big Macs, they hate us for our greed, arrogance, ignorance, and more.

No one likes punitive visits to the woodshed, except perhaps the one bearing the birch rod, so Hertsgaard (Earth Odyssey, 1999, etc.), who wields a Big Stick of Righteousness, will not find himself welcome at his local Chamber of Commerce meeting. Most of his cultural targets are fat and static. The media are too cozy with the government and Big Business. Americans are wasteful. We too readily surrender our rights in times of crisis. We are religious but we don’t practice what we preach. There are no real differences between Republicans and Democrats. America has no credible left wing. Too much money corrupts politics. Not enough of us vote. The Bush administration favors the rich and the powerful. We are exporting the worst of our culture ("The modern American empire colonizes minds, not territory"). Race remains a problem. The rage of the terrorists that led to 9/11 is understandable, though not excusable. We are ignorant about other countries, cultures, languages. We don’t know or care about our own history. Gore won the 2000 election. We love guns. And so on. The author offers eclectic allusions to Elvis Costello and Goethe, Freud and Faulkner, Pragmatism and The Wizard of Oz, but many are secondary quotations: does Hertsgaard read Emerson, or rely on others who have? Still, Hertsgaard’s work is not without entertainment value, for he can sharpen a sentence to a deadly edge. Of journalists, he writes, "Nowadays, it is a radical thing simply to be intelligent."

It barks, itbites—but will anybody hear? Or feel?

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(1) The Parochial Superpower

For Malcolm Adams, as for most people around the world, America is more a mental image than a real place. He will almost certainly never see the United States with his own eyes — he'll never have enough money to afford the trip — but that diminishes his interest in the place not one bit.

I met Malcolm on a bus ride in South Africa in June of 2001. He was a driver for the Baz Bus, a shuttle service known to the backpacker crowd in South Africa as a cheap if not always reliable way to get between major cities and rural tourist areas. The day he picked me up, he was heading east along the coast toward Durban. It was late afternoon, a low winter sun. Along the roadside hundreds of people, bunched in groups of five or six, were walking home. Off to our right, the Indian Ocean frothed and sparkled, crashing against the southern edge of the African landmass.

Malcolm was thirty-two, but his smooth-skinned face and ebullient demeanor made him look younger. Like his father, he had worked as a driver all his adult life, though as a teenager he dreamed of becoming a naval officer. "I had the ability," he explained wistfully, "but under the old system your skin color could keep you out of those things." Now he worked fourteen-hour days driving from one end of South Africa to the other. The scenery was glorious, but he missed his wife and two children, whom he saw only on weekends.

Still, he said, this was an improvement over his last job, driving public buses for the city of Cape Town. He quit that job after five fellow drivers were murdered gangland-style while driving their routes. The killer later testified in court that for eachmurder he was paid 350 rand, about U.S. $50, by bosses of the taxi drivers union, who apparently hoped to frighten passengers into taxis.

"Yeah, I heard about those shootings," I said. "The newspapers back home wrote about them."

"And where is back home?" Malcolm asked.

I told him, and his eyes lit up with glee as he gushed, "Oh, you are from America! Your country has a very great influence on South Africa."

"Really?" I said. "Good or bad?"

"Good, good! America is what everyone here wants to be like — American music, American clothes, American lifestyle: nice house, big car, lots of cash. America is the idol for many people in South Africa."

His own clothes made the point: a Jack Daniel's baseball cap, black jeans, and a royal blue ski jacket with puffy sleeves. He would have fit right in on the streets of Brooklyn or St. Louis. Malcolm said he and his friends knew about America from songs they heard on the radio, movies they rented at the video shop, TV shows carried on South African channels; The Bold and the Beautiful was a particular favorite. I asked whether older people shared his view-did his mother and father idolize the United States? "No, they are more Christian," he replied without irony. "They want to live a South African life."

By now, darkness had fallen. Malcolm's face glowed in the reflection of the dashboard lights as he spoke of the Cape Town township where he and his family lived. They had running water, electric light, and paved streets, but many neighbors lacked real jobs and crime was a constant worry: "Gangsters are shooting and robbing people and the police do nothing." We were silent a moment. Then, with the same enthusiasm he showed for anything American, he added, "Did you know that every township in South Africa has two street gangs named for your country?"

"No."

"Yes! One is called the Young Americans, the other is called the Ugly Americans."

"What's the difference?"

A wide smile. "The Young Americans dress like Americans. The Ugly Americans shoot like Americans."

Good, Bad, But Never Indifferent

America: a place that is very rich and shoots lots of guns. It's not the most sophisticated analysis, but it's a fair shorthand for how the United States is seen by many people around the world. Friend or foe, rich or poor, foreigners tend to fear America for its awesome military power even as they are dazzled by its shimmering wealth.

That perspective may sound jarring to some Americans. We see ourselves as decent, hardworking people who wish the rest of the world well and do more than our share to help it. We are proud of our freedom and prosperous way of life, and we understand why others want the same. We would rather not "entangle our peace and prosperity" in foreign toils, as the father of our country, George Washington, advised long ago, but we will use force if necessary to oppose injustice and protect freedom around the world for ourselves and others. We have our shortcomings like anyone else, but we believe we live in the greatest country in the world.

Malcolm Adams would, I imagine, agree with that assessment, and he's not alone. In twenty years of living and traveling overseas through thirty countries, I have spoken with many people who think very highly of America and Americans. I have also, of course, met many who find fault with the United States. In fact, the same individual often fits in both categories; some of the most penetrating criticisms of America I've heard came from people who, by and large, admire the place.

I began working on this book long before the 2001 terror attacks against America, and I pursued my travels and interviews both before and after September 11. From the start, the book was intended for two separate but related audiences. I hoped to provide my fellow Americans with a sort of traveler's report: "This is how we look to the rest of the world." For non-American readers, I hoped to explain why America and Americans are the way we are. The September 11 attacks gave these goals greater urgency and focus by suddenly illuminating how people everywhere felt about the United States. But the attacks also complicated the project by leaving Americans understandably sensitive to anything approaching candid criticism of their country.

A year has now passed since the terrible explosions and fires that killed more than three thousand people in New York, Washington, and Pennsylvania-a year of heating, of taking stock, of fighting back. Are Americans at last ready to hear what people overseas think about us? The message is a lot more complex than the "Why They Hate Us" war cry our media have supplied. And a lot more interesting. Foreigners aren't always right about America, far from it. But neither are they merely embittered fanatics, or jealous of our money, or resentful of our power, or animated by any of the other stock explanations mainstream American pundits and politicians have advanced as substitutes for honest self-examination. Most foreigners are sophisticated enough to see both the good and the bad about the United States, the pluses and the minuses. Which is why Americans can learn from their perceptions, if we choose to.

Foreigners can see things about America that natives cannot, and if ever there was a time when Americans needed such perspective, it's now. The horror of what happened on September 11 commands us to look at our homeland with new eyes — in particular, with the eyes of the rest of the world. Osama bin Laden and the Taliban are not representative of international opinion; hatred of America, though intense where it exists, is relatively rare. But Americans should not take false comfort from that, or let the sense of victimhood tragically earned on September 11 blind us to the fact that on September 10 the rest of the world harbored plenty of complaints against us, often with good reason. Indeed, some of the tartest criticisms — of the Bush administration's withdrawal from both the Kyoto protocol on global warming and the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, and of the refusal of the United States to join the international criminal court — were coming from the very leaders who soon stood shoulder to shoulder with America against terrorism, notably British prime minister Tony Blair, German chancellor Gerhard Schröder, and French president Jacques Chirac.

Copyright © 2002 Mark Hertsgaard