Following the 9/11 attacks, German-U.S. relations have deteriorated into some of the most negative stereotypes and misperceptions seen in the last decades. Safeguarding German-American Relations in the New Century, a compilation of essays edited by Hermann Kurthen, Antonio V. Menéndez-Alarcón, and Stefan Immerfall, attempts to dissect the origins and consequences of this rapidly intensifying alienation. One of the most interesting features of this interdisciplinary study, which employs perspectives by political scientists, historians, and experts in international relations, is its ambitious attempt to examine tensions in both the upper echelons of policy-making as well as the broader population. Contending that the future of German-U.S. relations depends on an intersection of political culture, historical experiences, competing memories of those experiences, and mutual stereotypes, the authors aim to highlight both the nature of present day differences as well as common interests that potentially unify the two nations. This book is successful in its goal of tracing different layers of social, political and cultural conflict that fuel German-U.S. divergence, and specialists as well as students of recent German history, political science and international relations will find considerable interest in debating its arguments and implications.

The introduction effectively synthesizes the ideas found in twelve different essays by leading scholars into a unified argument. America’s fundamental changes in strategy since 9/11 toward a policy of fighting two wars without substantial regard to its traditional alliances or UN approval is pushing Germany towards a search for alternative partners and alliances unless both nations actively work to rejuvenate their partnership. This recent development, according to the authors, actually grows out of a simmering, more long-term problem. Though Germany and the U.S. share core values, including ›rule of law,‹ ›liberty,‹ equality,‹ ›democracy,‹ their interpretations of how to apply these values in the economy, education, health care, and welfare differ dramatically. The authors place responsibility for overcoming this ›drifting apart‹ on both nations, calling upon the unilateralist and neo-conservative forces in the U.S. and the multilateral interests in Western Europe to carefully assess what is at stake if they cannot overcome miscalculations and misunderstandings.

The two major sections of the book – one dealing with the status of international foreign policy and economic relations and the other focusing on differences in public perceptions that contribute to German-U.S. alienation – succeed in dealing with a broad range of themes while remaining cohesive. One of the main ideas that links these essays is that strong social and cultural differences between Germany and the U.S. are unavoidable, but that this does not preclude the two countries from cementing common bonds. However, disagreement arises over whether or not these commonalities can be easily reclaimed. Konrad Jarausch stresses that while the US and Germany share common basic democratic values, attitudes toward the role of religion, protecting the environment, and the necessity for war have diverged since the Reagan revolution and the rise of the EU, worsening rapidly since 9/11. While Jarausch seems optimistic that more open dialogue can heal U.S.-German relations, Josef Braml suggests that the influence of the evangelical Christian right in shaping American foreign policy in the Middle East has created a deep political gap that may be impossible to overcome.
These intensifying differences are reflected, as Volker Frank convincingly argues, in radically different definitions of ›liberalism,‹ which is linked with Enlightenment- based ideals of human rights in Germany but wrapped in distracting, politically divisive squabbling over the role of religion in society in America. Stefan Immerfall, in contrast to Braml, predicts that common cultural connections – namely ideals of ›democracy‹ and ›liberty‹ – will ultimately prevail in healing misunderstandings that cloud essentially similar values.

The second section of the book concentrates on growing German-U.S. misperceptions and differences found in education, historical memory and popular media. The essays in this section suggest that overcoming growing ideological divides will be extremely challenging. Barbara Schmitter Heisler argues that ideologically charged national stereotypes, in particular in scholarship on immigration, reflect widespread misperceptions of how each nation imagines the relationship between the state and civil society. Looking at broader public perceptions, Monique Laney contrasts reportage on the war in Iraq, finding completely different attitudes towards the term ›war,‹ contributing to an ever deepening gap in perceptions about military power that requires greater effort on each side to understand the differences in perspective. Gary Anderson provides an interesting way of understanding the deeper causes of these different perspectives on the Iraq war with his comparative essay on American and German collective memories of World War II. U.S. conceptions of the ›good war,‹ eliciting popular feelings of pride and patriotism, in contrast to Germans’ complex feelings of guilt and pessimistic views of war create fundamental misunderstandings in how both nations approach the current war in the Middle East. Anderson explores the ways in which these collective memories are changing and becoming more complex, but predicts that reconciliation will only be achieved if stereotypical memories are replaced over time with more nuanced and realistic notions that eventually converge. In his essay on the success of American filmmaker Michael Moore in Germany, Thomas Clark sheds some light on how these deep-seated perceptions are projected in the popular culture. Clark explains Moore’s popularity in the context of Germans’ widespread negative stereotypes of America as dominated by violence, bigotry and social inequality. At the same time, Clark sees the Moore phenomenon as evidence of optimism in which Moore confirms German stereotypes but also provides a sense of ›hope‹ that Moore represents a positive strain of democratic activism in America that many Germans want in their own country, where deeper fears about the German economy and crisis in the welfare state lay just under the surface of criticism of American culture. Kurthen, Menéndez-Alarcón, and Immerfall optimistically contend in their conclusion that a renewed transatlantic alliance could be built on common global interests, including defending human rights, solving energy problems, and protecting democratic institutions. But as long as different interpretations of what is right, fair or just persist, and the U.S. continues its unilateral approach to world affairs, the gaps between the two nations will continue to expand. Overcoming these isunderstandings can only be achieved by an active willingness on both sides to break through the stereotypes and establish a more open dialogue that acknowledges common interests.

This book has a number of merits that should make it interesting and useful across disciplines. On one hand, the book’s admirable goal of tracing both elite political affairs and public perceptions also presents a fundamental challenge in untangling how these layers of perception interact. The introduction could expand further upon the symbiosis between public misperceptions and the political misunderstandings that come out of these cultural trends. However, the editors of Safeguarding German-American Relations have conceived a timely and important study of recent developments, and the individual essays analyze these high political and popular intersections of stereotypes with great insight. For historians and political scientists seeking scholarship on the continuity and change between familiar Cold War-era tensions and present-day diplomatic and cultural conflicts between Germany and the U.S., Safeguarding German-American Relations definitely fills this gap. From the perspective of a teacher, this book would be extremely useful for engaging students in discussions German-U.S. perceptions of each other at the dawn of the new century, and addressing ways in which both cultures might transcend stereotypes and old suspicions as they face the challenge posed by war to their common values of human rights and democratic institutions.

Jason Crouthamel, Assistant Professor
History, Grand Valley State University, Michigan