“America First” is “America Alone” Foreign policy is like physics: vacuums quickly fill. As the United States retreats from the international order it helped put in place and maintain since the end of World War II, Russia is rapidly filling the vacuum. Federiga Bindi’s new book assesses the consequences of this retreat for transatlantic relations and Europe, showing how the current path of US foreign policy is leading to isolation and a sharp decrease of US influence in international relations. Transatlantic relations reached a peak under President Barack Obama. But under the Trump administration, withdrawal from the global stage has caused irreparable damage to the transatlantic partnership and has propelled Europeans to act more independently. Europe and America explores this tumultuous path by examining the foreign policy of the United States, Russia, and the major European Union member states. The book highlights the consequences of US retreat for transatlantic relations and Europe, demonstrating that “America first” is becoming “America alone,” perhaps marking the end of transatlantic relations as we know it, with Europe no longer beholden to the US national interest.

Based on new and existing research by a world-class scholar, this is the first book in twenty years to examine the dynamics of the entire American-West European relationship since 1945. The relationship between the United States and Western Europe has always been crucial and recent events dictate that it is becoming ever more so. In this important new work, Geir Lundestad analyses the balance between the cooperation and conflict which has characterized this relationship in the post-war period. He examines talk of transatlantic drift, and the strain now apparent between the USA and the nation states of Western Europe. In the concluding section, Lundestad offers a topical view of the future of transatlantic interaction. Throughout the work Lundestad's much cited 'empire by invitation' thesis is both put into practice and extended in time and scope. This book is essential reading for anyone interested in one of the most important and enduring international relationships of the last sixty years.

American culture has been one of the most controversial exports of the United States: greeted with enthusiasm by some, with hostility by others. Yet, few societies escape its influence. However, not all changes should be interpreted simply as "Americanization." The shaping of the postwar world has been much more complex than this term implies as is shown in this volume that explores the links between Americanization and modernity in Western Europe and Japan. In considering the impact of products and images ranging from movies and music to fashion and architecture, a multi-disciplinary group of contributors asks how American culture has been employed internationally in the articulation of postwar identities - be they national or subnational, socially sanctioned or socially transgressive. Their essays on France, Italy, Germany and Japan move beyond the simple paradigms of colonization and democratic modernization, yet retain a sensitivity to the asymmetries in the postwar power relationships between these countries and the United States. An extensive introduction historically locates changing interpretations of American influences abroad and suggests the problems and promises of "Americanization" as an analytical tool. Its comparative focus and interdisciplinary scope will appeal to a wide range of students and scholars of cold war and post-cold war history.

Traces the history of the Marshall Plan and the efforts to reconstruct western Europe as a bulwark against communist authoritarianism during a two-year period that saw the collapse of postwar U.S.-Soviet relations and the beginning of the Cold War.

What are the consequences of globalization for the structure of political conflicts in Western Europe? How are political conflicts organized and articulated in the twenty-first century? And how does the transformation of territorial boundaries affect the scope and content of political conflicts? This book sets out to answer these questions by analyzing the results of a study of national and European electoral campaigns, protest events and public debates in six West European countries. While the mobilization of the losers in the processes of globalization by new right populist parties is seen to be the driving force of the restructuring of West European politics, the book goes beyond party politics. It attempts to show how the cleavage coalitions that are shaping up under the impact of globalization extend to state actors, interest groups and social movement organizations, and how the new conflicts are framed by the various actors involved.