ABSTRACT
In discussions of anti-Americanism certain arguments regularly recur. Criticism of American policies, it is affirmed, must be distinguished from the broader and often irrational sentiment of anti-Americanism. It is necessary to make the distinction, we are told, not only because opposition to America takes many forms and has many different motivations but because, when closely analysed, even the most extreme negative reactions to the United States turn out to have identifiable sources in particular situations of power relations. Taken to its logical conclusion, such arguments result in the view that, for all the hatred directed towards the United States by specific nations or groups on specific grounds, anti-Americanism as such, i.e. a generalized opposition to American life and culture, does not exist. ‘There is no such thing as anti-Americanism in the Middle East’, declared a member of an audience following a lecture on anti-Americanism given by the present author, ‘only specific objections to the record of American policies in the Middle East since 1945.’
