Table of Contents

Introduction
Part I: 1898-1939
Prologue
1: How the American Century Started
2: The Roaring Twenties in Europe
3: Modernity and the European Encounter with Hollywood
4: The 1930s: Capitalism on Trial
5: New Deal America: The Flickering Beacon
Part II: 1941-1959
6: Our Destiny, Your Future
7: Responding to the World's Reformer
8: Progress Re-discovered? European Thinkers and America's Propositions in World War II
9: 'The Most Revolutionary Force': When American Armies Arrive...
10: Reflating Europe with the Marshall Plan
11: The 1950s: Going for Growth
Part III: 1989-2009
12: After the Cold War: The Age of 'Soft Power'
13: Epilogue: The End of the 'American Century'?
Conclusions

About the Author

David Ellwood's first major book was Italy 1943-1945: The Politics of Liberation (1985) then came Rebuilding Europe: Western Europe, America and Postwar Reconstruction (1992). The fundamental theme of his research - the function of American power in contemporary European history - has shifted over the years to emphasise cultural power, particularly that of the American cinema industry. He was President of the International Association of Media and
History 1999-2004 and a Fellow of the Rothermere America Institute, Oxford, in 2006.

Reviews

Ellwood's The Shock of America is a huge, ambitious and hugely enjoyable book, stuffed full of enough erudition and anecdote to last any undergraduate or graduate class for a whole term ... This is a book that will spark debate among historians and International Relations experts for years to come.
*Glen O'Hara, International Affairs*

It's a great book and should be a wonderful addition to any Modern Europe course syllabus ... and of course, to the bookshelf of any history buff.
*Laura Hopkins, Goodreads*

David Ellwood ... took on the monumental task of writing a political history of the European response to America as the 'model of modernity'; the result is an excellent book. ... This is a remarkably dense, enlightening and wide-ranging book.
*Kathleen Burk, History Today*

This is a book that will be of great interest to anyone who has been grappling with one of the most intriguing problems of the twentieth century.
*Diplomatic History*

One could not ask for a clearer, better written synthesis ... Everyone will love David's thorough, entertaining, up-to-date coverage of American influence in Europe in the age of the internet.
*David Culbert, Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television*

This is a central text for anyone who seeks to study Europe's fractured relationship with modernity or to understand the relationship between America and Western Europe in the modern world ... Its scope is massive, resting on the analysis of hundreds of scholarly works in at least four languages and drawing from substantial, wide-ranging, original research.
*Martha L. Hildreth, American Historical Review*