- 1 For an excellent historical overview of those complex ties, see Richard Pells, Not Like Us. How Eur (...)
- 2 See, for example, a recent article published in the Wall Street Journal: “What Does MAGA Have again (...)
1The cultural relations between America and Europe, as we all know, are deeply rooted in the colonial past and, for a long time after the founding of the United States, remained exceptionally strong—though marked by a volatility that might best be described as a love-hate relationship.1 The origins of the “American” identity have a lot in common with anti-European feelings. As Jaap Verheul has pointed out, the birth of American cultural nationalism can be traced to the Anglo-American War of 1812–1815, which spurred the emergence of a new American cultural nationalism developed “in self-confident opposition to the Old World” (13) and “fed a vitriolic anti-European rhetoric that soon informed American foreign relations and economic policy, and would never completely disappear from the American intellectual horizon” (1). A fast-forward to our time shows how this cultural dynamic continues to occasionally resonate: consider the similarly “vitriolic” anti-European formulations characteristic of the MAGA rhetoric.2
2A parallel but at the same time opposite narrative, known as anti-Americanism, has also a rich history, with a long list of European intellectuals, let alone politicians, expressing their reserve, or often contempt, for American culture—as “opposed” to “Frenchness” or “Britishness,” which are held to stand for higher moral grounds and aesthetic standards. Comparing and contrasting the two sides of the Atlantic is of long standing, having been often fueled by identity construction efforts.
3In our century, the crystallization of the European identity under the aegis of the European Union has sometimes been accompanied by anti-American sentiments, particularly in the wake of the 2003 U.S.-led intervention in Iraq. This induced Ralf Dahrendorf to observe with much bitterness that “views about what Europe is and should be are actually at the heart of today’s anti-Americanism” (Dahrendorf). To follow a reverse logic, it seems almost “natural” that the local anti-EU sentiments of the populist nationalist opposition to the European project, particularly in Eastern Europe, have recently found expression in a loudly manifested pro-Americanism, including an almost idolatrous embrace of MAGA and Donald Trump.
- 3 See: John Tomlinson, Cultural Imperialism (1991); George Ritzer, The McDonaldization of Society (19 (...)
4Much has been written about American cultural influence in Europe and beyond. While this is not the place for a comprehensive review, it is worth noting that much of the earlier scholarship tended to presuppose American cultural uniqueness. Critics of American cultural dominance often linked their objections to critiques of American-style capitalism—seen as overly consumerist and insufficiently attentive to social and class-related concerns. In this framework, “Americanization” became synonymous with “cultural imperialism,” “conquest,” or “invasion,” with metaphorical terms such as “Coca-Colonization” and “McDonaldization” frequently invoked.3 Wim Wenders captured this sentiment memorably in his 1976 film Im Lauf der Zeit, in which a character observes: “Die Amis haben unser Unterbewusstsein kolonisiert” (“The Yankees have colonized our subconscious”) (Poiger 24).
- 4 The degree of openness to Western influences and cultural/consumer products varied, of course, depe (...)
5While the American “cultural imperialism” framework does not fully explain the dynamic of the transatlantic cultural relations between the United States and Europe, the political, structural, and institutional factors present during the Cold War and in the post-Cold War period should not be overlooked. Market control, advertising, and political leverage—sometimes supported by U.S. governmental institutions like the U.S. Information Services Branch—have undoubtedly helped promote American cultural dominance abroad. Studies such as Reinhold Wagnleitner’s analysis of Austria’s “Coca-Colonization” and Victoria de Grazia’s book on the “Irresistible Empire” demonstrate how American systems of consumption, technology, and advertising, combined with political leverage, transformed West European culture after WWII, and how American business interests achieved cultural dominance not through coercion but through accommodation and consent. And studies like Radina Vučetić’s work on “Coca-Cola Socialism” in Tito’s Yugoslavia demonstrated how deeply American consumer icons and popular culture infiltrated culture and society beyond the Iron Curtain, with the Communist authorities keeping their eyes “wide shut” in an attempt to win public support.4
6Although these studies largely focus on the Cold War period, the mechanisms they identify continued into the post-Cold War era, bolstered by perceptions of American triumph and the global spread of market capitalism. Yet, more than twenty years into the twenty-first century, “Americanization”—the debate about which peaked in the 1990s—is increasingly being reinterpreted, together with such terms as McDonaldization, as a code word for undesirable modernization, globalization, and uniformization of culture (Featherstone 2). Observing the conflation of “Americanization” and “globalization,” which in his view became “virtually interchangeable terms,” Wagnleitner provocatively suggests that “[t]oo often, the term ‘Americanization’ has been instrumentalized by those who are apt to forget that the United States, however indigenous its cultural developments, is a result of the Europeanization of the world” (xii).
- 5 As he explains, early 20th century critics often used “Americanization” as a metaphor to encompass (...)
7As David Ellwood has pointed out, the late-20th century fears of American cultural dominance over Europe have a long pedigree: the term “Americanization” became a key concept used by traditional elites and cultural critics to denounce modernization and unwanted changes already in the 1920s. As he observed, the post-war periods (from the 1920s through the post-Cold War period) consistently reflected the concerns of Europe’s traditional elites and cultural critics to denounce modernization and unwanted changes, which were coded as the fears of “Americanization,” “homogenization,” or “cultural imperialism” (Ellwood 449).5
- 6 See, for example, Kroes 162-178.
8The “Americanization” paradigm based on the center-periphery model, seen as a one-way flow of cultural influence originating in the United States and “colonizing” (or Coca-colonizing) the “outside” world, seems to have lost much of its appeal in favor of more complex perspectives on the give-and-take that marks the interaction between cultures. Scholars are now increasingly prone to emphasize active cultural negotiation, hybridization, and creolization. American popular culture, once viewed as an oppressive force, came to be seen as a versatile “toolkit” which local communities could creatively adapt—enriching, rather than displacing, local cultures by generating hybrid cultural forms.6
9Richard Kuisel observed in 2020 that “a gathering of German historians a few years ago” had proclaimed that “[t]he Americanization paradigm is no longer tenable” (602). He chose to partly disagree with the judgment. Rather than being buried, the paradigm should be reinvented, he claimed. Granted that it is no longer a process of wholesale importation, the American cultural influence—being selectively appropriated and domesticated, and seen as a part of Europe’s globalization—remains a legitimate area of research, despite having lost some of its sheen: “[t]he age of European dependency and American domination, privilege, and influence associated with the early postwar and Cold War years is past. Rather than Americanization, the issue is a widening Atlantic” (Kuisel 602).
10Independently of the drift of social theory, the changing conditions “on the ground” seem to be affecting the long-taken-for-granted, dominant status of American culture. Kuisel notes that contemporary Europeans are less concerned with American culture than in the past, and that the trend accelerated already during the first Trump presidency, when the United States’ “soft sell” appeared to lose its appeal. One is led to believe the trend continues and can only be aggravated by the alienating rhetoric of “America First” and the conduct of the current administration. This view is reinforced in recent media coverage, such as the New York Times guest essay, “America Is Losing the Fight for the Teenagers of the World,” which argues that American popular culture no longer inspires global youth as it once did (Marche).
11Alongside questioning the process of “Americanization,” the very concept of what is considered “American” has been contested. Responding to earlier scholarship much of which focused on mythic national traits, scholars initiated a movement to reinterpret American culture through the lens of marginalized voices. The emergence of the “New Americanist” approach in the late 1980s and early 1990s transformed American Studies by foregrounding race, ethnicity, class, gender, and sexuality, and by challenging the narrative of American exceptionalism as hegemonic and imperialist.
12Central to this paradigm shift was the recognition of cultural interdependencies between the American mainstream and its “others,” including Hispanic, Latin American, Asian, and African diasporic cultures. The work of Paul Gilroy, Donald Pease, and Amy Kaplan, among others, contributed to rethinking the field in transnational terms. In 2004, Shelley Fisher Fishkin crystallized this trend in her American Studies Association keynote, “The Crossroads of Culture,” arguing for a more inclusive “Transnational American Studies” that addresses cultural flows across borders.
13While Transnational American Studies has become an umbrella term for new regional, ethnic, and de-nationalized perspectives—and seems to dominate the American Studies community today—it is important to note the growing internationalization of the field. The work of the European Association for American Studies forms a vital part of this effort. Yet the difficulty in fully integrating international scholarship was highlighted when Janice Radway, in her 1998 presidential address to the American Studies Association, observed that “the work of international scholars is still often cordoned off in special international panels rather than integrated with panels that feature United States-based scholars” (qtd. in Graff et al. 13). Not long ago, skepticism persisted among European scholars as to how much the transnational approach reflects a true relinquishing of American centrality, which led to the critical observation that “‘transnational American studies’ may be anti-national in theory but remains a U.S.-based pursuit” (Graff et al. 14). The question about the extent to which this statement rings true today is left to the reader.
14Beyond the need to integrate “external” or “de-centered” perspectives on U.S. culture, the international dimension of American Studies must be strengthened by encouraging scholars to study and reflect on cross-border cultural flows and interdependencies. Such an approach enables the tracing of multiple processes in which cultural material originating in the U.S. becomes appropriated and hybridized abroad—and, conversely, how ideas, institutions, and practices from elsewhere influence and transform American culture. This inclusive project—which requires knowledge of foreign languages and cultures—helps dissolve the boundaries between American Studies and other national or area studies, expanding the scope of research on international cultural flows.
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16This collection expands on an earlier volume focused on transatlantic cultural transmissions, “America to Poland: Cultural Transfers and Adaptations” (Special Issue of the European Journal of American Studies, 13-3/2018). It broadens the scope to include a variety of perspectives on American cultural influence in Europe, while also tracing the cultural flows going in the opposite direction. The purpose of this volume is to contribute to the growing body of international perspectives on two-way transatlantic cultural relations between the United States and Europe. With one exception (the study of Greta Garbo), the articles focus on the post–World War II period and—also with a single exception—are written by European authors.
17Part One (“Ideas”) contains four essays on the transatlantic flow of ideas in the postwar era. Two explore how American interpretations of nineteenth-century European philosophy shaped social movements and political theory in the United States during the 1960s and 1970s. In “Historical Failures and Political Aspirations: Judith Shklar Brings Hegel to 1970s America,” Moa Spegel analyzes how Shklar adapted Hegel’s The Phenomenology of Spirit to interpret the social and political upheavals of the 1970s, particularly around the U.S. Bicentennial in 1976. According to Spegel, Shklar frames American history as a series of failed attempts to realize democratic ideals, suggesting that the continuous striving—rather than success itself—is the essence of democratic aspiration.
18In a complementary contribution, Antoni Górny’s “The Transatlantic Marxism of the Black Panther Party” traces how Huey Newton and the Black Panthers adapted Marxist theory, creatively reinterpreting concepts such as the vanguard and the lumpenproletariat to fit the realities facing Black communities in 1960s and 1970s America.
19Megan Wesling examines the transatlantic exchange of feminist thought between the United States and France, focusing on the historical dialogue between movements and the recent resurgence of feminist ideas in the context of #MeToo and #BalanceTonPorc. Wesling shows how French Feminisms shaped American academia in the 1970s and 1980s, but now face resistance in France, where critics accuse feminists of importing “dangerous” American ideologies. Central to her discussion is French feminist Monique Wittig, whose critique of heterosexuality as a political structure gained traction in the U.S. before being reclaimed in France.
20Finally, Paulina Grzęda examines the evolution of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), tracing its emergence as an American psychological model rooted in empiricism, pragmatism, and individualism, before its institutional adoption in the United Kingdom. In contrast, CBT has faced resistance in France due to the deep entrenchment of psychoanalysis and philosophical objections rooted in perceived American consumerism and neoliberalism.
21Part Two (“Identities, Borders, and Mediations”) addresses a wide array of topics connected to transatlantic cultural flows, including film, art, music, and food. Two essays focus on border-related themes. In “Dreaming About the West: Tramping and Country Music in Communist Czechoslovakia,” Tomáš Pospíšil explores the unexpected popularity of American country music behind the Iron Curtain, rooted in Czech tramping traditions and longstanding fascination with the mythology of the American Western frontier. The article puts forward the argument that country music offered an avenue for symbolic resistance and escapism under Communist rule.
22In “Colors of the Borders: Discourses of Migration and Border Crossings in American and Polish Cinema,” Ewa Antoszek and Zbigniew Mazur draw parallels between Agnieszka Holland’s Green Border (2023) and American films such as The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada (2005) and Flesh and Sand (Carne y arena) (2017), demonstrating how the Polish film draws on familiar tropes and visual conventions often associated with American filmic texts addressing borders, migration, and hospitality, arguing at the same time for an increasingly global character of migration.
23Two contributions explore European adaptations of American film genres. Emma Oki’s “It Came from the Water: The Rise of the Polish Vegan Zombie” illuminates how Xawery Żuławski’s film engages with American zombie film genre tropes, while recontextualizing them within a Polish setting defined by environmental degradation and post-communist capitalism. In her view, the film is a meaningful Polish contribution to global eco-zombie narratives. Similarly, Joel Frykholm’s “In True Hollywood Style? Localized Emulations of American Genre Film in Contemporary Swedish Cinema” examines how films such as Angry (2010), Operation Ragnarök (2018), and The Unthinkable (2018) adopt and adapt American genre conventions, suggesting that American-style filmmaking is no longer seen as an inherently imperial or undesirable influence in Sweden. The films in question, it is argued, represent the mainstreaming of “American” genre filmmaking in Sweden.
24Two essays address performances of national identities. Hélène Ohlsson explores Greta Garbo’s performance of Swedishness in Queen Christina (1933), arguing that her portrayal reshaped North American perceptions of Swedish femininity by combining notions of hyperborean identity and hegemonic whiteness, infused with lesbian connotations. Meanwhile, Tomasz Jacheć examines European chapters of DC Comics anthologies Batman: The World (2021) and Joker: The World (2024), analyzing how Europe’s national cultures are performed through visual and narrative choices and highlighting the interplay between regional specificity and American superhero mythology.
25Further exploring dynamic cultural exchange, Edyta Frelik’s “Transmigrating Forms: Tadeusz Mysłowski as Cultural Mediator in Transatlantic Exchange” examines the work of the Polish-American artist Tadeusz Mysłowski, presenting him as an active agent of intercultural mediation. Frelik argues that Mysłowski’s work complicates assumptions of one-way cultural export by demonstrating how European visual traditions reshape American forms.
26Finally, in “American Media and the Taste for Italy: Placing the Construction of Italian Food Identity in a Transatlantic Setting, 1970s–2020s,” Giulia Crisanti deconstructs the global narrative of Italian cuisine as authentic and artisanal. She emphasizes that this narrative emerged in response to American fast-food culture, shaped by media and cultural brokers, and argues that Italian food identity is the result of ongoing, reciprocal influence between Italy and the United States.
27Together, the contributions in this volume challenge the outmoded notion of Americanization as a one-way cultural process and instead illuminate a complex, multidirectional web of influence across the Atlantic. By examining the ongoing negotiation of cultural identities, practices, and ideas across time and space, the essays demonstrate that cultural transmissions across the Atlantic constitute a dynamic field of adaptation and creativity in which both sides participate as innovators as well as inheritors.