by Professor Jen Lynds, UTIMES ADVISOR
In Irresistible Empire: America’s Advance Through Twentieth-Century Europe, author Victoria de Grazia astutely analyzes how American consumerism remade Europe over the course of the twentieth century. de Grazia’s book adds substantially to contemporary scholarship on imperialism by emphasizing its cultural expressions rather than its political and military components. According to de Grazia, prior to the United States attaining global dominance, American consumerism had permeated the structured and bureaucratic social structure of early 20th century Europe. She underscores how the “Market Empire,” propelled by American-style mass consumption, triumphed over the antiquated European system of restricted and class-oriented commerce.
Her books and articles on the American empire, fascism, and more have won awards and been widely reviewed and translated. She is also the author of The Perfect Fascist: A Story of Love, Power, and Morality, and Soft Power Internationalism, 1990-2020’s.
In the 586-page tome, published by Harvard University Press, de Grazia expertly merges global economic and social history, while also examining culture. This is a comprehensive and integrated analysis of consumption, a deeply rich work developed through considerable research of historical and published sources.
A Moore Collegiate Professor of History at Columbia University, de Grazia received her BA magna cum laude from Smith College in 1968. She pursued advanced studies in history at the University of Florence, and was awarded her PhD with distinction from Columbia University in 1976.
De Grazia’s book is an incisive analysis of how the American quality of life triumphed over the European lifestyle, establishing a worldwide cultural supremacy that constitutes both its principal strength and its primary weakness today. The book is founded on extensive study of archival and published materials. Its primary focus is on events between 1920 and 1960, although there are brief reflections on later developments. The author’s purview is extensively comprehensive, encompassing France, Germany, Italy, and Britain in depth. She also occasionally highlights Belgium, Switzerland, Eastern Europe, and Soviet and post-Soviet Russia. The central argument is that the “Market Empire” of the United States exerted a fluctuating, but ultimately effective, pressure that reshaped European societies in its own image.
In Irresistible Empire, she utilizes and expands the emerging research of marketing and consumerism via a series of continental analogies. The outcome is an engaging examination of how elements of U.S. wealth, promotional activities, and consumer iconography influence European economies, cultures, and civilizations.
De Grazia emphasizes the power of President Woodrow Wilson, who in 1910 stressed the importance of mixing statesmanship and salesmanship. He urged a crowd of 3,000 businessmen to “let your thoughts and your imagination run abroad throughout the whole world, and with the inspiration of the thought that you are Americans and are meant to carry liberty and justice and the principles of humanity wherever you go, go out and sell goods that will make the world more comfortable and more happy, and convert them to the principles of America.”
The thesis expands by exhibiting eight aspects of twentieth-century consumption, as well as the general depictions of consumers. Chapters one through six focus on the 1920s and 1930s, commencing with a review of the Rotary Club’s American antecedents and its growth abroad, particularly into Germany. Three-fourths of the book is devoted to time between the World Wars and to halting inroads the Market Empire took in Western Europe.
Nevertheless, the central chapters on promotion, grocery stores, brand names, and retail chains are the book’s center. Each of these components was an essential part of an extensive advertising framework that alternately encouraged, shocked and convinced Europeans to follow a customized rendition of the model. The outcome was a European adaptation of American consumer capitalism that was highly successful.
The impact of the Marshall Plan on consumption, the creation of universal branding (such as the laundry detergent Ariel) that concealed its origins, and Hollywood marketing strategies all offer valuable insights. De Grazia’s characterization of Germany’s role is particularly intriguing as an alternative financial model, as it challenges the significant contribution of Jewish business owners in the development of the new mass marketing simulation and, in fact, views the concept as a Jewish invention.
This study is both stimulating and powerful. Its comparative methodology is a significant asset. At times, the reader is presented with a superficial knowledge of twentieth-century history due to its focus on the period from 1920 to 1940, which confines the portrayal of U.S. and European consumption cultures and promotes a disregard for more direct forms of colonization. In numerous case studies, the argument for the influence of American business and culture is undermined by the discovery that European cultures are stronger than previously thought, or are frequently not adequately wealthy to emulate American materialism.
This implies that European consumer attitudes underwent a more progressive alteration, at least until the significant increase that occurred in the mid-1960s. It also suggests that their foundations were more robust before 1920 than De Grazia indicates.
