The relationship between America and globalization is usually interpreted in one of two ways. Either globalization and Americanization (and Westernization) are seen as virtually synonymous, the world becoming a community of Big Mac eating, Gap wearing, Hollywood movie watching, free-market espousing individuals, or more worryingly perhaps, the US is seen as a global military and economic hegemon dictating the course of (under) development in many parts of the world, and in doing so working to create the world in its own image.

Conversely, the extent to which US culture is out of step with the rest of the world in many important respects is sometimes emphasised: gun ownership; criminalization of minorities, a preference for homegrown rather than global sporting contests, breaches of the Geneva convention over detention of prisoners of war, would all be good examples, to which can be added the fact that only around 20 per cent of US citizens own a passport. In terms of human rights, one of the most global of cultural values, some US states prefer to retain the death penalty in the face of international pressure, from the EU amongst others, a choice which creates friction with European nation-states over extradition arrangements. This is not an isolated example: the US regularly chooses to define its interests nationally rather than embrace global culture, as in the case of US reluctance to sign up to the Kyoto agreement on global warming.

So either the US is largely responsible for globalization or it is less globalized than many other countries, according to taste. The books under review accord centrality to the question of the relation between America and processes of globalization. Such a focus is timely, not just because the US is the world's single most powerful nation-state which is increasingly willing to defy global public opinion in its pursuit of the 'war on terror,' but because the dynamics of globalization necessitate an examination of the extent to which any one power can shape global processes, and indeed whether it is possible to conceive of any nation-state as a cohesive, purposive, and singular actor under conditions of globalization.

The edited collection Global America? addresses many dimensions of the relationship between globalization and Americanization, including American exceptionalism (Jan Nederveen Pieterse), Americanization and Japanese cultural identity (Gerard Delanty), globalization in China (Yu Keping), the Americanization of the Holocaust memory (Natan Sznaider), the export of American forms of suffering (Eva Illouz), and the globalization of rock music (Motti Regev). These examples of the American engagement with or propagation of global culture address the question of the globalization of America on the back of a substantial theoretical framework developed in the opening section of the book. Ulrich Beck argues that talk of 'global America' is based upon a methodologically nationalist understanding of globalization and develops that case that a cosmopolitan perspective on globalization is much needed, particular the way in which the national and international are becoming harder to distinguish. John Tomlinson also wishes to move away from geo-political interpretations of globalization and argues that we should not see cultural globalization as the spread of cultural practices from certain dominant places to others, as this can lead to an overly simple conflation of Americanization with cultural imperialism. The globalization of culture should be understood, not in terms of cultural transfer leading to homogenization, but in terms of 'shifts in the texture of modernity' (p. 50). This shift is primarily the result of 'immediacy,' as made possible by new communications technology, and which has replaced mechanical speed as the key motif of the transition from modernity to the global age. Immediacy, in the sense preferred by Tomlinson, indicates more than instantaneous communication: it also refers to the redundancy of mediation, the privileging of arrival over travel, and the reduction of effort involved in communication. These chapters establish some key markers for the chapters that follow: the non-correspondence between globalization and American cultural domination, and the role of globalization in producing particularisms and difference in the world.

In his chapter on 'The Americanization of memory' Natan Sznaider examines the ways in which the collective memory of the holocaust has been globalized, producing a type of remembering which embraces a universalistic experience, rather than a particularistic national one. The US has played an active role in constructing the Holocaust as a global memory, particularly in the 1960s and 1970s when 'the Holocaust became an effective weapon for defending Israel in American political forums' (p. 179). The dominant interpretation emphases a crime against humanity and this has resulted in non-Jews identifying with the Holocaust. In this way, the Holocaust has become simultaneously a Jewish tragedy (in its historical context) and universal (as a warning for the future): the lesson to be learnt is that it could happen to anyone. The particular has been universalised, and the globalization process works from within as a narrative form which can be deployed to interpret and explain a diverse range of experiences.

The same processes are at work in the case of the globalization of rock music, as outlined by Motti Regev. The 'rock aesthetic', an Anglo-American confection, is a cultural logic which has, over the past 30 years or so, scripted the development of popular music in a wide variety of national settings. The 'rock aesthetic' has become dominant as a cultural form because it can be easily combined with other musical styles and bestows a subversiveness or seriousness on the authors/performers of what could otherwise be rather slight and ephemeral musical forms. Importantly, the 'rock aesthetic' is not experienced as cultural imperialism but is easily domesticated into 'authentic' local musical forms. Consequently, when we hear rock music produced from within other cultures it can appear both strange and familiar at the same time. The 'rock aesthetic' does not lead to the homogenization of world music; it is an example of the particularization of universalism, to employ the terms made familiar by Roland Robertson.

In the wonderfully titled The Globalization of Nothing, George Ritzer (who also contributes a theoretical chapter to Global America?) situates global America in the context of wider processes of global transformation, particularly what he terms 'grobalization' and the 'globalization of nothing.' These terms require some explanation. According to Ritzer, 'nothing' is dominating our lives. By nothing, Ritzer is referring to 'social forms which are centrally conceived, controlled and comparatively devoid of distinctive substantive content' (p.3). Four types of nothing are elaborated upon: non-places; non-things; non-people; non-services. Fast food restaurants - McDonalds and Starbucks are singled out - are replacing local cafes. Shopping malls are replacing local markets. The supermarket and the fast-food restaurant are 'classic examples of non-places where non-service is the norm' (p.69).

Nothing cannot be properly understood except in relation to something. Every place, thing, person, and service can be placed on a continuum with nothing at one end and something at the other. The point, states Ritzer, is not that the world is increasingly full of nothing, but that nothing is proliferating around the world as a result of the globalization of nothing (p, xii). That which is centrally conceived and controlled is relatively easy to globalize. The growth and spread of nothing in all of its formscan be accounted for in terms of 'grobalization' which Ritzer defines as a supplement to the idea of 'glocalization' as developed by Roland Robertson. Grobalization - the growth strategies of corporations, organizations and nation-states - involves various subprocesses: capitalism, Americanization and McDonaldization (thereby linking this book with much of Ritzer's earlier work). Ritzer argues that conventional approaches to globalization and social change have focussed on the conflict between the global and the local. The key dynamic, however, is the conflict between grobalization and glocalization. Whereas, glocalization involves the interaction of the global and the local, grobalization is the expansion of homogeneity (p.75). Grobalization suggests a uni-directional process whereby local groups lose ability to innovate and manoeuvre. Put simply, the argument is that 'capitalism, McDonaldization, and Americanization are all grobalizing processes deeply implicated in the proliferation of nothing throughout the world' (p. 90).

The problem with Ritzer's thesis that it develops a social theory which is rather too neat and tidy, with all loose ends tied off. In seeking a unified theory of globalization, Americanization, and McDonaldization Ritzer claims rather too much for the 'globalization of nothing.' Of particular concern is Ritzer's mono-perspectival reading of 'nothing': the idea that non-places, non-things, non-people, non-services cannot be viewed, experienced or interpreted in any other way. In other words, according to Ritzer there is no opportunity for us to experience hamburgers, airports, call-centres, internet shopping, or a cup of coffee at Starbuck's in a way which accords them the status of things, places, services etc. But contrary to the globalization of nothing thesis, for many people McDonalds or Starbuck's exist as places rather than non-places: the people who work there perhaps, or customers who find the openness and general atmosphere less exclusive, homophobic or racist than the local pub, for example. Also, I was always given to believe that outpostsHoward Schultz, the driving force behind Starbuck's, modelled the friendly café style and the open seating arrangements on the sociological idea of the 'great good place' to use Oldenburg's phrase, quoted by Ritzer to emphasise the distinctiveness of places vis-à-vis the kind of non-place represented by Starbuck's. In short, Ritzer does not allow for the possibility that what he believes are non-places could be experienced in other ways by other people, and his line of argument contains more than a whiff of high versus low culture snobbery. The result is that Ritzer's theory is every bit as 'centrally conceived and controlled' as the social forms which are deemed 'nothing' in this book.

The difference between the two books is that one wishes to see globalization as a uni-directional process of transformation which has an origin, centre, a single dynamic, and a cultural logic which is spreading to encompass the world. This is Ritzer's vision and it assumes a high degree of compatibility between globalization and Americanization. It is a vision which will find much support both within the social sciences and beyond, more for its simplicity and neatness than its exploration of the complexities of globalization. By contrast, Global America? emphasises the two-way nature of globalization and the ways in which Americanization has been resisted, domesticated, and reworked. On this reading 'global America' exists as a vast resource which can be tapped by a wide range of actors seeking to define and empower themselves. There is a marked reluctance to view America in imperialistic terms, a tendency reinforced by the editorial decision not to broach the subject of the cultural impact of American military domination or economic penetration. This might be perceived as a weakness in some quarters. Yet the book scores heavily by playing to its strengths and offers some subtle and provocative interpretations of Americanization in a wide range of national settings, America amongst them.

back to books reviewed