WS 2005/2006    Preuß Texterschließung    Staatsexamen Frühjahr 2002: text 7

   The New World had a profound impact on the quality of European life and the shape of European thought. To some observers it was a raw and barbarous place requiring the civilizing hand of European man; others pronounced it virgin and unspoiled, a land of purity, youth, and innocence, where man might be remade. All, however, were very nearly mesmerized by it. From the Halls of Montezuma to the Kingdom of the Saguenay it seemed a fabulous place, its treasure and potential far exceeding anything to be found in the world they knew.
   In time many commentators found its incredible promise most fully realized in the United States. There liberty and abundance had combined to produce a spectacularly successful civilization, one committed to, and apparently able to sustain, a society of opportunity and freedom for all. With the making of a successful revolution, the special virtues of American society came to be viewed not simply äs an emanation of place but as a function of politics, for the republican order seemed simultaneously to confirm and amplify American freedoms. American political and social principles, it was thought, would redeem Europe from the lassitude of aristocratic domination.

   If much of the American impact on the European world before 1900 occurred at the level of idea and Inspiration, the imperialism of the 1890s joined with Theodore Roosevelt's aggressive foreign policy to transform America's presence in the world affairs into one which was hard, tangible, and real. European observers noted with concern the rise of this new constellation in the heavens of their world. "One hears," wrote the French historian Henri Hauser in 1905, "nothing spoken of in the press, at meetings, in parliament, except the American peril."

 The emergence of America turned, of course, on more than the war with Spain or the antics of an exuberant chief executive*); its foundations rested upon America's maturing economic order, the rise of modern Communications, and a mastery of organization. These elements combined with the appeal of American popular culture to ensure a massive American influence abroad. American business techniques, organizational principles, machinery, magazines, dress, sports, slang, capital, and values were making their way around the world. They were at once altering the style of the globe and making it tributary to the United States.

(Allan Smith, "Introduction" to: Samuel E. Moffett, The Americanization of Canada. University of Toronto Pr., 1972).

AMERICARTOON**), by Stuart Carlson, May 9, 2003:
*) "The antics of an exuberant chief executive"

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