America-bashing predates America: French Enlightenment philosophies claimed that the colony was doomed and one critic reported that the colony's population was "astonishingly idiotic [and] enervated". As the United States became a superpower after the Second World War, a more virulent, politically charged form of declinism emerged amid hysteria that "the Russians are coming". It was followed by the European miracle, Japan's "Rising Sun" and now the looming Chinese behemoth. While declinism may delight the media and gloating Europeans eager to play up America's "has-been" status, the facts do not corroborate the contentions, as Josef Joffe demonstrates in this history of American declinism. He offers a highly provocative examination of how the US, for all its failings, continues to be a force of rejuvenation today.
- ISBN10 0871408465
- ISBN13 9780871408464
- Publish Date 16 January 2015 (first published 4 November 2013)
- Publish Status Active
- Publish Country US
- Publisher WW Norton & Co
- Imprint Liveright Publishing Corporation
- Format Paperback
- Pages 352
- Language English