Focus 580; Irresistible Empire: Americas Advance Through 20TH Century Empire

Probably how most people would argue that the United States became a major power on the world stage by virtue of its military strength. However this morning in a spot of focus we will explore a different kind of dominance as we talk with historian Victoria DeGrazia in her recently published book irresistible empire. She argues that Europe and the European way of life was changed some might indeed depending on your viewpoint say defeated not by guns not by force but by America's consumer oriented capitalism. It is something that perhaps has accelerated in pace in the last 10 15 years but something that has been going on for much longer than that certainly back before World War Two and it is also something that she argues that Europe participated in quite voluntarily of the book irresistible empire. Subtitled America's advance through 20th century Europe is published by the Belknap press of the Harvard University Press and our guest Victoria DeGrazia is

professor of history at Columbia University. She's joining us this morning by telephone as we talk. Questions comments from people who are listening are certainly welcome. We'd like to bring you into the conversation your ideas your thoughts are welcome here in Champaign-Urbana. If you'd like to call and the number to use is 3 3 3 9 4 5 5. We do also have a toll free line so that means if it would be a long distance call if you're listening over the air around Illinois Indiana or if you might happen to be listening on the internet as long as you're in in the United States somewhere you may use the toll free line and that is 800 to 2 2 9 4 5 5 3 3 3 W I L L toll free 800 1:58 W while those are the numbers to call. Professor DeGrazia Hello. Good morning Davis. How are you. I find Thank you and yourself. Thank you. Well we appreciate you giving us some of your time. I think that. It preps the place to start is in a sense where I began my introduction and that is that

it is undeniable that the United States has the power and has military power and part of the part of its influence is in is by extension a military power but this is a different kind of power and in fact it's something that I think other scholars also have been commenting on writing about talking about more and more I think and that is acknowledging that the extent to which other kinds of power whether it's economic power whether it's the influence of American culture particularly American consumer culture the way that that that kind of power has contributed to and been a foundation for American dominance on the world stage. Yes. You know I think it was from the outset that American leaders particularly the more idealist one thinks the Woodrow Wilson thought that America was not going to be military it was going to be

through the spread of its ideals. In a very material way through through good through the sense of goods that are commodities but goods which which bring good bring people life standards up to make them look more like they will get a lot better goods that will defeat the curial powers of the Old City of the gun boat diplomacy. Had I think over the course of the century that dimension of American power was the often used in an in the know and the late Cold War especially in the nineteen eighty. It began to be lost sight of. And then after the fall of the Soviet Union. Oh you know there it is. Maybe we can use it to should reshape the world in a different way. We no

longer have a big militarized superpower gets that. That's not how it turned out but I think that's why we were all interested in what this soft power as it's called is and how powerful is it. What can it change. Can it persuade people to to get along in the world and to to love the United States. I think it is interesting just how far back this goes. Particularly because we tend to think of the the pace of globalization picking up particularly within the last decade or two. And you touched on. In the name Woodrow Wilson and it is it is interesting to note that you begin in fact noting in your objection that going back as far as Woodrow Wilson and and a speech that he gave in July in fact of 1916 he was talking to a big gathering in Detroit where he essentially said go out and sell.

And that that would be indeed a way of this spreading not only American commercial products and influence but also American values he saw that as an avenue to do that as well as I said as far back as 1900 certainly before World War Two. Yes I was saying at the very moment that the Europeans were engaged in the biggest first biggest battle of the war about the FOP which which was killed you know hundreds of thousand soldiers. So the contrast that he was also aware of of the of America that was caught great by its bombardment of goods or seeping out of goods and the Europeans he was arguing for. But global diplomacy relations through force. So that COB. That he was making was very important to the American project that America would work through diplomacy of good and not through

an old style of the period. So you know it is a long story. The story that starts with the great growth of American industry was facts of us that have significantly different resources from other areas of the world from having it became a great population to the needy. Handheld gradually building up then a very dynamic consumer culture. It obviously it is difficult to or perhaps I would say it is easy to overgeneralize and to use. Sweeping terms like American culture and European culture terms that begin to be so broad that they almost have to ask whether they mean really what they mean anything. Oh no you have to be more careful about what you what you how you use them now having having said that though if if we do say something like well if

there were if before say the politically before World War Two. If there was something that we would put in quotes and say was a European culture and we contrast that with American culture. Both of those you know things in quotes. What would European culture constitute and in what ways do we contrast that with what we think of as American culture. Oh it's a nice way to frame the problem to say. Well what is this European culture of bigots which the Americans are are fighting and the Europeans themselves would have said well we're deeply divided. And there were the you know conservative forces at that air European consumer culture is about craft and about the right style for the right people. So it's right that the birds will live in a certain way and it's right too that the workers live in their own poor modest way

and the twain shall never meet. And then the left said you know these are terrible class divisions. And it was that we should have a revolution or at least very significant reforms that allow the workers not to have a lot at least of it has a ferry to get rid of the parasitical luxury elite and then a third way emerges which is the most dangerous which was the Nazi Fascist come along if they are we're going to reorder Europe make it as have a big. United States by conquest and we're going to develop good that are like the American ones that are the Ford well of the bokes blog and that of the RCA Victrola with radio we're going to the popular radio. And that way we'll show our early citizens that they are as good as the Americans that there is a kind of populists and reactionary democracy that we are supporting against this new

world or American style of mass democracy. So what the U.S. is up against in Europe and what Europeans are doing is it's cop. But I think that we need to understand that there are these various positions which in Europe serve a position so the socialist position which is that it's tied to the Soviet Union and that that's very reactionary fashion. Those are all defeated. That's part of the American way. Let me just very quickly again introduce our guest for this hour of focus 580 We're speaking with Victoria the Grazia. She is professor of history at Columbia University and the ideas we're discussing here this morning you will find in her most recent book which is titled irresistible Empire America's advance through 20th century Europe it is published by the Belknap press of Harvard University Press and I'm sure that if you would like to read the book you can go find it in the bookstore.

And of course questions on the program are welcome as always you want to call and make a comment offer some thoughts of your own ask a question. 3 3 3 9 4 5 5. Toll free 800 to 2 2 9 4. If I'm one of that you talk about it a number of really interesting things in a sense. Each chapter is devoted to a different kind of a theme that has to do with American marketing and American ways of thinking. And and so forth and we can talk about some of those things but one of the really basic issues and mentors that in is having you talk about the idea of standard of living and what that constitutes what are the material hallmarks of a good standard of living and how it is that through the through American agency Europeans started thinking differently about what that meant about what is in a quote unquote decent standard of living was who defined it how to get at and how indeed the American commercial culture

started to change the way that Europeans thought about how they were living and perhaps how they how they what they aspired to. You know one thinks the traditional The Friday you know you have a history of the birch walk that is the top pass or you know the president is cab and it's accepted that they have different styles of living you know. I think. Bridged that it's a Each person knows his or her status and what was so striking in the United States is really very early to be in the 19th century that goods begin to be used by people to show that they have something in common. And so you know if history's begin to produce new kinds of innovative goods which don't have any particular class connotation a bad book we wrote the bluejeans which is the way you start out as a as a work outfit and then

incredulously over time will spread to become the you know gee that doesn't have any clear class connotation. And that kind of good is especially attractive in a country like the United States because of the great for a variety of ethnic groups. It gets pushed as so that people will feel more part of the of the collectivity and out of that comes a value which says All right we Americans we have standards of living which. Say that we need the basics. The American working class is particularly sympathetic that the male white American working class because they said look we need a decent salary to get the necessaries of life in order to distinguish ourselves from those those Chinese coolies who work for nothing or those poor black farmers.

Maybe use that term obviously who you know sell their their labor for nothing or women who will just get cheap low wages. So this American Standard was very much based on the idea that there would be a decent wage and that wage then would be spent for what they call decent. See that is how the quality food quality clothing and that that was open to everybody and everybody could get a decent wage with a decent wage they could get you could super good though. It says you know the high wage will lead to a decent standard of living and there should be universal to everybody. How true that it wasn't and it would take a long time. Even the United States to get a decent wage for workers. But it set a kind of universal model to say look decent wage necessaries of life. People acting look alike and that should

be for everybody in the world. And when they said that the particularly Brits say in Europe it's not like that at all. There are bad wages and the classes are fighting with each other and people aren't the same. So it's a very remarkable argument that says if you share the comics consumer goods you're going to head up big or like and that's like a democracy based on consumer goods through the marketplace. So it's a very original idea it's of in some ways a very revolutionary idea. And it's the you know stance behind this kind of pushing out of American goods through the century. Of course that's for two. To cultivate in people the desire for that kind of standard of living. You have to show them what it looks like. And one of the things that I think you also argue that. America was putting the good out

was doing just that particularly taking advantage of mass communications how it is it's remarkable that any mark a little bit the big the big one and the thing that you talk about is American movies. Oh they were used to sell in and a lot of ways to sort of show European cities. See here this is the way it's supposed to be. This is what you're supposed to be going for. Oh right there. You know these remarkable flute you know the scenes of the let's take just the worker of how workers look at their advertising the beautiful high quality photographs which were that reproduced European Agassi about how working class families looked when you know if you're up you know in a magazine. Sg. Professor DeGrazia I think we lost the guest and I'd tell you what we'll

do we'll just have to try to get her right back on the phone and we will resume our conversation and. Sure that will take just a moment. Sometimes these things happen. Let me again introduce our guest for this part of focus 580 We're talking with Victoria DeGrazia she is an historian. She is on the faculty at Columbia University and has been writing about Europe and the relationship between Europe the United States for a long time and in fact this book that we're talking about here this morning was quite a long time in the making. The title of the book is irresistible empire the subtitle is America's advance through 20th century Europe. It is published by the Belknap press of Harvard University Press. And again looks at what the kind of things that different kinds of scholars have referred to as American soft power. That is not so much military force but the force of American consumer culture on the world particularly on Europe. And I told we have you back.

Yes and I my apologies I think which is normally capitalist technology. Well yes it's it's not perfect. It's a swell technology but it but it's not perfect. Anyway we were talking about were talking about mass media the way that Americans use mass media particularly to promote a certain kind of lifestyle a way of living and to show to Europeans and as I said sort of sort of to show this is what it's really like. This is the good life. And this is what you you can have if you just you know come along call come along with us. Right. I mean just you know from a European to you the small European theaters to see up on the big screen these you know the illuminated images these live images the live images of common people or to see them in magazines or to see the goodness so that all the photographs the Kodak photographs that were sent home by immigrants to their families and you know it was it was a remarkable

vision because if they did living in a province or small town of Europe they would see those images of their own workers. So you know it's like on the big screen this projection of America and what. Remarkable too is the remarkable cooperation among different sectors of the United States to promote this image so clearly it's business advertising. But the American government was so active in supporting this promotion and we find all sorts all kinds of civic groups also very active. I write about Rotary Clubs and how active they were and you know connecting with Europeans and other people around the world. And you know reflecting on the American standard of living this this comfortable world from which they came. So it's a you know kind of a

unity of synchronicity that goodness knows you could divide founded in Europe which was so riven by class and also by different nationalities and different ethnicities. Well we have a caller to talk with let's do that. And here in Urbana where. We are one number one. Hello. Yes. Yeah. About living standards and how we compare them at somebody who like me who was born in India but spends a long long time in Europe before coming to the United States is it's interesting to compare because the ideas about what a living good living standard years ought to include things that are. Not immediately. Tangible as a material comfort but for example the

issue of Social Security and health was tackled in Germany as early as in the 1870s. We are as the common person in the United States did not see any of that until the middle of the 20th century correctly informed. The impression that that the United States standard of living was so much higher. I believe it is primarily due to the space that is available in the United States that resulted in an abundance of food and spacious housing which is that which is the primary difference between what we see here and what we see in in Europe and a lot of it just eliminate from from that basic fact. If we compare today's living standards in

Europe part of it is certainly inspired by the United States influence. But there is very worse influence on the United States that resulted in production of certain securities like Social Security which was not part of the US. We are living and today we still have 40 some million people without health insurance in this country whereas nobody in Europe was without health insurance. If you convert that to the standard of living one wonders which way their influence is really going. I I agree with you. I'd say I know ninety nine point nine percent that this notion the American notion of standard of living was market driven based on the individual's capacity to buy goods and it would never refer to collective goods to the social goods that make

that individual's power acquisitive power possible. So all the studies that were done which I became a kind of model didn't count that pensions or they did it did count. You know how much was being done by government to to back this high standard of living that the government was putting at roads the cars the government's putting its sewage pipes for the you know the all the flush toilets and so on and so forth and above all it never monetizes in the United States. The cost of these important elements like Social Security health insurance and so on. So what the Americans do get those and those are added and do the high standard in the 1930s. But I would agree with the argument and I do say this it in the book.

The Europeans in the end combine this access to a higher standard through you know through through through their own jobs to this great cluster of what we call social or collective goods. And to me the end of the American Revolution and consumer culture is marked by the fact that our services have failed in many respects and it's simply not enough to to buy cheap goods. That the standard of living there thereby has greatly dropped especially with respect to the European standard which combines recognizes that you need not just individual buyers looking out for their families and themselves but this is a array of social collective community goods. You you mentioned the the role of education.

Before World War 2. Many of our of our scientists were trained in Europe and the standard of education there especially at the high school level seemed to remain pretty high and contribute to the ultimate standard of living and that the influence if it could be very we were away from Europe would be beneficial to us. That certainly I you know what I would say is that irresistible empire is arguing about a very particular notion of the power of a consumer culture a very particular notion of the standard of living that comes out of it. Our resources in the United States the way you know our people government you know private citizens businesses have

articulated a particular kind of standard. It's not the only one. But my interest is how it became a hedge a monic in the course of the century and then in the end of the century I would argue from the last quarter of the century how it begins to fracture and decline. That you know what you're saying is absolutely right that you know today the lights of the last two three decades one could very much argue about whether the United States expresses the superior standard of living any more. And many people would criticize it on the important grounds. Thank you. Thanks for the call and let's go to another caller. Champagne County are toll free line lines for the Low High Five want to second all of those comments. Quite a quite important. I think they're quite correct if you mention gun load diplomacy and I would like to

point out that well. Wilson was urging Americans gapless to go out and sell the US was was exerting gunboat diplomacy and you know enforcing the Monreal doctrine as it were in the Caribbean and all over Latin America and we were using our Navy as a collection collection agency for brown brothers. So a lot of it was was against European capitalism getting into that area so there's a whole if you want to look in these broad scopes you have to prove that kind of thing. I wanted to make one quote from a Thomas Friedman who is sort of a cheerleader for this kind of soft power kind of thing. Will you be occasionally blurt something out. This is a pretty infamous quote and it goes as follows. The hidden hand of the market will never work work without a hidden McDonalds cannot flourish without McDonnell Douglas. They didn't this the Keeps of the world safe for Silicon Valley's technologies. The flourishes called the US Army Air Force Navy and

the Marine Corps and I think despite my disagreeing with him most of the time that he has said something that's that irreducible that you can't have the so called soft power without the hard power and I think when it comes down to it the US's. Defining role in the world is is more than the military role and I regret that. I lament that but. I think that. I'm very uncomfortable with your thesis and how it fits into the whole. Iconic ground. Correct. No one right. Like I you know one of the characteristics is that of this market empire which I characterize is that it rests on. You know those of peaceable this which itself is not pursuing that is the reason I don't usually agree with Tom Friedman but

I utterly understand the that McDonald's is related to true to the other side of the equation that is it is you know force and coersion. And what I think we need to understand better is the persuasion element and how it fits in with war. Because what made the country so unusual is that it presents always its peaceable side and you know in courses of war its capacity to. Grow as a consumer power increases. Well during war that of Europe sinks and when the war ends it. Its model appears all the more overweening all the more powerful. So the two that is in a war and this peaceable looking power go hand in

hand utterly and. But that's the story here of irresistible empire. No it's taking that venture the Friedman spam argument and playing it out for all it's worth over a century. And what we see now at the end of the century is that the persuasive side no longer work and more and more investment is in the military side. And more and more every effort to sell the American model shows up that it's a bad product and the sell now doesn't work anymore. Well seems to me that I think. There was a pretense and I don't really buy it but it was work in the fashion that you were saying to some extent of fun deniable Hollywood movies. It all formed this but I don't think it's the fundamental O.

Motive momentum in the Empire or the US of A democracy can't be an empire and it shouldn't want to be and I have to go. Thank you. Well whether it wants to be an empire not by argument says that it has been a particular kind of empire a market Empire which is in many ways a much looser kind of empire than the close empires of the earlier times the British Empire the French empire the Spanish Empire. And that we you know need to understand these two faces and how they interact. That is the the worst side and the peace side in order to understand when times shift. And when we move in one direction rather than the other one we go back and talk about a couple of the other. Themes that you deal with in the book that have to do with how American manufacturers sold

things to Europeans and on the one hand I'm interested in the in the marketing not so much the where people went to buy things. I wanted to do that but set that aside more to the idea of the promotion of American products because certainly in Europe they had European manufacturers of whatever it is their own they made photographs they made razors they made automobiles they you know they made all of those things. How is it that American manufacturers went about persuading Europeans that something that was made in the United States or they had an American label on it was better. Then the equivalent product that was made in Europe. Well the the European manufacturers operated very well locally and oftentimes with other branded goods. So you know you'd be using a local razor that

you would get from a shop. You know the the the brand profile would be very high. And generally European manufacture was had to be on the smaller scale of markets were smaller. Then in the United States you in the American corporations had the advantage of the very large scale were operating on a very large scale and competing on a very hard market. The American domestic market so they had this enormous amount it creating a very powerful brand profile which then allowed them monopolies over whole sectors of goods especially new goods with six of its a Dalit coming in and saying you know I'm the first. No shaving razor and then having you know he acquired huge capital lots of skill all kinds of new technology in the United States about the stock market. They then move abroad where they are admits to you know much smaller firms and this gives them

a huge advantage and often even a monopoly because they're offering a new product. And with enormous merchant merchandising power behind them but also also them and American government support frequently. They are you know able to generate a huge amount of promotional attention and that you know succeeds in driving up small ones or they buy out the more successful ones. We could. See that again and again a new sectors. Now whether that is Coca-Cola or Gillette razors or for Procter Gamble's various kinds of detergents and other cleansers. So there it's size the orchid size but it's also you know a capacity to say this good is culturally right for you know make it modern and I think we always have to keep in mind that it's

it's both a very big economic power. It's an economic power that's backed by the American state all of its commercial attack caches abroad. But it also requires a kind of cultural dynamic dynamism to define Oh this is the modern product and you know which Try it try it. The only thing that another thing that you talk about has to do with the American style of retailing which also was brought. Europe and in the end perhaps it was it was in some sense the kind of story that we have seen here in the United States as smaller retailers or independents have been driven out of business by bigger ones. The same thing happened and well here now where we have heard about for example in recent times organizations like Walmart and Kmart going into Europe in the 90s that certainly is not a new story either because going back to the 20s Woolworths for example was in Europe and doing sort of the same kind of

things changing their ways in which people shopped by change in Europe by changing where people shopped. Exactly and if the world were to while Mark story sounds so familiar if you have seen it you know how well were operated in the 20s and 30s and see how American supermarket capital bursted to Europe. Very often with lots of you know political support for it because it represented the possibility of slashing prices which cover both authorities wanted it represented the possibility of showing that. I think. This could win that capitalism had a better way to improve people's lives by cutting costs offering a variety of entertaining them with advertising so you know again and again we see that now American corporations first of all they

practice of the United States they build a lot of momentum cutting around the United States which is really very different difficult market. Lots of different segments and then you know practice makes perfect and then they go abroad. They have had no reason not to American market gets saturated and they're they're restless they're they're more restless are moving around the United States and the European market especially since the 1950s It's a very rich market. It's the you know richest market after the United States and it offers you know a big space in which they can settle down and you know make make lot of profit. Yet another little piece of this I think is really interesting that you deal with in the book has to do with with women essentially and their. Their role as a purchasing agent I guess for the family in Europe and how us how securing their participation was

also very important very important for those people who are interested in selling the American standard of living and very specifically in selling American goods were how were they were they and how were they were women that is specifically targeted and specifically marketed to buy American salespeople have. I mean we can see it in even the American government. She's famous of Nixon Khrushchev debates the Moscow fair 1958. You know there is the tendency for kind of this American idiology to say we treat women right. You know we have become that City's of life take care of an all women the world should have those rights the right to be real women in their households with all of kitchen equip. Permissive not supportive of the old fashioned vision but the operations picked up on that and you know

it in moments where you know the European societies were changing. Hit it it didn't allow it kind of access into the household. You know this image of the you know the pope who was beautiful woman standing at her you know her laundry machine. You contrast it with what was often a reality that is that washing doing the washing even required maids because of dirt cheap rates. Or the woman of the house. Washing with a washboard. Real real drudgery. So it was playing on this contrast between you know the image of a modern woman the kind that you saw the movie who never saw older hands and the reality that working women in Europe were. Leads to Housefull labor and that was an important element of the class distinction in European society that upper class

women didn't do the drudge work and your and lower class women did do the drudge work so that this kind of advertising goes in and says you know liberate yourself. Purchase a new kind of household equipment that will free you from the particular drudgery of housework. Now that had been worked all ready through in the United States but in Europe because of the division between women between the upper class type of love of women's lives and lower class it had an especially powerful impact. And then it picked up very quickly by European appliance manufacturers to you know really next is advertising that is you know that movie that feel free will be it will liberate women played on the famine began to play at the feminist notion of of freedom through you through through more and more appliances. We have about 10 minutes left in this hour of focus 580. I have another call I will get right to that I

would like to introduce. Men are gassed for anyone who has joined us here in the last five or 10 minutes. We're speaking with Victoria De Grazia. She is an historian and she's on the faculty at Columbia University she specializes in the contemporary history of Western Europe and particularly the things that interest her are mass and consumer cultures gender the history of family politics she's often a number of books in the most recent If you're interested in this subject here we're talking about this morning is irresistible empire and it is published by the Belknap press of Harvard University Press we have another caller here someone on our toll free line and we'll get right there. Hello. Their line for oh hello. Yes I'm a little bit puzzled by the Wal-Mart wooer of the military because well we're running this company. And a friend of ours who traveled green with a regulator for her some years ago when people were getting occurred about Japanese ownership. There's actually a lot of companies are owned by the

immigration debate for the first going forward. Well you know we Germans came to the United States and said we thought Wal-Mart. Well Woolworths was a German company but it was founded by Frank Woolworths in Lancaster Pennsylvania and night night excuse me 1879 and it went into England in 1900 very rapidly. It outstripped market Marks and Spencer and it became so local that the red front as they used to call it began to be called a an English store Oh but it wasn't. Right if they are going to turn over her and as the big question will be is well will what will that happen with Wal-Mart women. Another 30 years will if we see Wal-Mart in on a British street will we say to them that British and if so what will that mean about the stretch of American market empire. What would mean about the changes that have occurred in British retailing. OK so that's the kind of

problem that I'm trying to address here that these big companies will go out. They will federally and they will change everything and you know after several years after this rupture which they've got a lot of political force behind them they will start to look more and more. So we say natives changing the customs slightly various ways. So you know we end up like an archaeology like if we were in ancient Rome we'd look pick up a pot and say if we were travelling in what seemed gall and say what is what does this say about the reach of the Roman Empire. Now it looks like it's local but we can see from the signs that it's not local. It comes from comes from Rome and from Riker. Thank you. Let's go to Cancun. Before another caller here know this is lie number one. Hello good morning. Yes your co-writes like to scan the narrative in the present and was wondering.

There are many ways that this strategy is now able to be pursued successfully no more. Her only strategy. Military. It's an excellent question a wonderful question and he was raised in a sense by an earlier caller too. And and I think you can again kind of take a pass at that Professor DeGrazia. It sounds as if you were saying that the answer the question is maybe a commercial the commercial power has. We have exhausted that and for that reason perhaps the only thing the United States. Can now fall back on his military power. Well the United States is an incredibly inventive country that we can be optimistic about that to the degree that you know it's going to have to turn its inventiveness now to redoing its technological edge. Right now Wal-Mart is very new with respect

to Walworth But what it created National Manufacturing it brought. Stop sourcing in Europe and started sourcing in the United States. Wal-Mart has outsourced to China. And the question is now has the U.S. lost its capacity to be on the edge. And if so is it going to all only as we say rule exercise its power by you know you know being the outsider by being by being unilateral or is it going to go back to you know arousing this great capacity to try to reinvent itself as a you know power with high standards. That could come from a much better quality of life but that be you know investing in the ecological industry you know thinking of much more utopian way about what a good standard of living. Yes and that is going to be more collective goods and more social goods more of the

goods like the pensions the high educational standards the health insurance that other countries have been experimenting with. So I don't want it done such a pessimistic note let's end on a utopia that there are other ways still to go. I think that probably have a very recent guest there Richard Florida spoke of their creativity and their experience of talent. Technology intolerance from the right ads can be found certainly. Right. Continue with the resistible on fire. Thank you. All right thanks echo. We have talked about the fact that or at least alluded to the fact that before now substantially before now the criticism has been made of America that we have come to the point where we define our well-being in terms of our material standard of living

and a lot of people would say that that's a mistake that that's that's not. Doing the things that really matter and I'm sure that the same kind of thing is has said and has been said for some time in Europe that you can't simply value the material things and use that as an indicator of whether you're doing well or not. I guess I am interested in and as this this kind of story that we're talking about goes back at least before World War 2 whether indeed all or all the way along there been people in Europe who have been making that critique and saying wait a minute it's not just about our stuff. There are more important things and we believe and he would have said here in Europe we have believed that for a long time why are we moving away from that. Oh Jim so much debate so much complaint so much worry that the Europeans are succumbing to a materialist vision and that that was being promoted by the Americans. But I think now the debate continues and even he did his big rig do it

in Europe. The argument is that this collateral material existence is being undermined by DU kinds of class distinctions. It's being undermined by resource constraints it's big undermined by the dangers to future generations coming from the you know to be the terrible environmental issues that this kind of materialism but also that Western materialism and their critics are willing to put America and you know Europe together distances the West from the rest and that there's such a huge global problems and that they can't be addressed. While the the Western standard of living is so absorbing of the of of of resources so there are lots of you know interesting movements what they call critical consumption or the slow

food movement. It's the other ones that are raising all kinds of questions about the that the standard of living based on you know high mass consumption basically driven through the market and that they conversation that not only European There's a lot of possibilities of it moving transatlantic And as we see also with lots of new global connections as well. Yeah well that's a good spot for us to end and we must because we're at the end of the time. The book once again if you'd like to read it is titled irresistible empire it's published by the Belknap press of Harvard University Press by our guest Victoria DeGrazia She is professor of history at Columbia University and Professor DeGrazia thank you very much. Thank you very much David. Take the. Callers as well.