-
Views
-
Cite
Cite
Rosemary Wakeman, Brian Angus Mckenzie. Remaking France: Americanization, Public Diplomacy, and the Marshall Plan. (Explorations in Culture and International History, number 2.) 2005. Pp. xii, 259. $60.00, The American Historical Review, Volume 112, Issue 1, February 2007, Pages 289–290, https://doi.org/10.1086/ahr.112.1.289a
Close - Share Icon Share
Extract
Brian Angus McKenzie offers an intriguing analysis of the postwar Marshall Plan as a form of public diplomacy to win the hearts and minds of the recalcitrant French. It is a timely study given the current calls for a revival of the Marshall Plan as part of American global strategy. Rather than focus on the well-known economic mechanisms for European reconstruction, McKenzie takes on the Marshall Plan as an attempt to reorder European society, a vast propaganda operation to counteract communism and promote American interests. The plan promoted a modernization that was Americanization in its most explicit guise. Despite a relentless campaign to tell the story of America, however, McKenzie argues that the Marshall Plan as public diplomacy actually backfired. It created mythical expectations the United States was unable to fulfill even in the short term and ended by fueling French anti-Americanism.
The U.S. State Department and the Marshall Plan focused considerable attention on France. Their French Mission had more money to spend on informational and cultural projects than any other European country. After surveying the shift in U.S. public diplomacy in France from “psychological warfare” (p. 31) to shaping opinion on American culture and society, McKenzie explains the more imaginative projects with dexterity and verve. Traveling agricultural exhibits and participation of the United States in regional fairs showcased modern farming methods and American aid. Art expositions were meant to convince the French of American willingness to uphold Western cultural standards. Labor exhibits promoted productivity drives and consumerism as the magic formulas to American-style affluence and easy living. The creation of tourist-class airfares was an opportunity for Marshall Plan officials to promote the economic and cultural benefits of American travel to France. The “invasion of the American mass media” (p. 221) from films and radio to exhibits, pamphlets, and publications such as the Labor Information's Bulletin syndical, the French Mission's magazine Rapports, and private publications such as Sélection du Reader's Digest comprised an unrelenting information offensive. It was all meant to sell the idea of America and the benefits of the Marshall Plan to the French. As portrayed by McKenzie, this broad-ranging discourse offered a lofty normative vision of modernization that corresponded to American omnipotence and cultural universality.
