------------ EH.NET BOOK REVIEW --------------  
Response to Graham Brownlow's review of Harm G. Schr�ter, _The   
Americanization of the European Economy: A Compact Survey of American   
Economic Influence in Europe since the 1880s_.  
  
By Harm G. Schr�ter, Historisk Institutt, Universitetet i Bergen.  
  
  
  
Graham Brownlow has reviewed my book extremely negatively -- and he   
is entitled to his opinion. But reviewers have standards to uphold,   
the central one being to give a reasoned and fair-minded appraisal.   
Achieving this involves at least three interrelated elements: 1)   
presenting the book's contents accurately; 2) not altering or   
fabricating issues in the book and then attacking them as inadequate;   
and 3) not exaggerating -- or minimizing -- issues out of perspective.  
  
Unfortunately, the execution of these elements in Brownlow's review   
is not faultless. The book not only identifies three waves of   
Americanization, as Brownlow duly states, but explains why they   
developed, why the first two petered out, and why a succeeding wave   
has always emerged (at least to date). In short, my book gives   
reasons for the Americanization of European economic life.   
Americanization is a process of transfer, rooted in cultural values,   
and these values unfortunately cannot be quantified. The quantitative   
intractability of the book's definition of Americanization --   
contrary to Brownlow's reading, I never used Americanization as a   
synonym for convergence of growth rates and the `Golden Age' is his   
phrase not mine -- clearly annoys Brownlow: "this reviewer would have   
preferred a single definition that could better lend itself to   
measurement. Schr�ter's suggestion that such a more quantitative   
approach would be 'misleading' again does not convince this   
reviewer." Here I am afraid that we must agree to disagree.  
  
Brownlow identifies several issues and examples that might have been   
taken up in a work on Americanization. He finds it strange that "the   
post-1945 Americanization of the global economics profession" and   
that "the relevant literature on the uniqueness of British economic   
performance" are not mentioned. His identification is correct, but   
these are among the many interesting and important issues that are   
left uncovered in this short work because they are not directly   
related to the core of the book's argument on the Americanization of   
the European economy. He is also justified in regretting the uneven   
coverage of the smaller European economies; the neglect of the Celtic   
Tiger was especially regrettable -- mea culpa. In general, however,   
the book's emphasis on Germany, France, Italy, and Great Britain is   
the inevitable result of the great economic and political weight of   
these countries as well as of existing scientific literature.  But   
what about the "elementary errors," "glaring errors," "errors of   
fact," and "many errors of historical fact" that "reduce the   
credibility of the book"? Here Brownlow overreaches himself in   
enthusiastic one-upmanship, abetted by skewed or restricted readings   
of the actual text and its context. That I refer to Hayek's _Road to   
Serfdom_ by the date of its first reprint (1946) rather than its   
first publication two years earlier is hardly an egregious error of   
interpretation. The objection of the linking of Hayek and Friedman is   
misconstrued. Referring to the Chicago School is admittedly facile   
shorthand for a diverse group of persons and opinions, but for   
Brownlow to restrict its meaning to Milton Friedman's monetarism is   
narrow-minded. The text does not say that Hayek was a "Friedmanite   
monetarist" -- that is his construction; the passage refers to their   
common opposition to welfare-state economics and support for "a   
capitalist economic order based on private property and a free,   
competitive market." Brownlow will surely recall that Hayek and   
Friedman were frequently mentioned together, however uncritically, in   
the political-economic debates of the 1970s and 1980s; John Kenneth   
Galbraith even referred to Friedman as Hayek's "coadjutor."   
Brownlow's command of baseball history is commendable. However, the   
reference was to "professional team sports" in general and not just   
to baseball. It is also true that the forerunner of the National   
Basketball  
League started in 1898, but the forerunner of the National Football   
League did not emerge until 1920. The general dating might indeed   
better have been formulated as "the end of the nineteenth century"   
rather than "the beginning of the twentieth century," but the point   
is hardly momentous; the important issue is the development of all   
team sports as big business and mass entertainment from the 1950s.   
Brownlow's objection to the book's characterization of EQUIS is also   
misconstrued and misleading. He is, of course, right to say that   
"EQUIS is in fact European in origin," and if he reads my text again   
he will find that I do not say that it is not. However, EQUIS is   
clearly a take-over of American business school standards (AACSB),   
however much it might trumpet its Europeanness, and it thus   
represents one of the central concerns of my study: why did many   
Europeans feel the need to establish a standard of business education   
and why did they chose to base this standard on the American model?   
I thought I had made it clear in the text that EQUIS was an example   
of an Americanized, rather than American, standard, but I evidently   
let him down.  
  
Brownlow's inflation of some peccadilloes to "extremely careless   
[general presentation]" replete with "far too many typos, spelling   
and grammatical errors to mention" is so intemperate that I wonder if   
we read the same book. That the location of an AFL-CIO conference was   
left with "a cryptic [where?]" is of course lamentable; likewise   
lamentable is the typesetting glitch that erroneously italicized two   
paragraphs. For them and for the non-italized book titles in the   
bibliography I do penance and say a mass of mea culpas. As for the   
rest -- if his contention is valid -- I can only assure him that   
considerable efforts -- both human and electronic -- were expended to   
insure the linguistic integrity of the text. My Canadian colleague's   
copyediting is generally regarded as very thorough, conscientious,   
and second to none, but clearly Brownlow's talents are even superior   
and I must remember to solicit his services for my future   
publications in English. As he can see on my website   
<http://www.harmschroeter.de> the book's topic is a long-standing   
research interest of mine, and there are several related works on the   
drawing board.  
  
Finally, I sincerely regret that Graham Brownlow's hopes and   
expectations were dashed and that he had to spend what was evidently   
a very disagreeable time "ploughing through this book." I can also   
comfort him that the operation of the capitalist marketplace has   
lessened the likelihood that unfortunate undergraduates might   
confront the book and "inescapably repeat its errors of fact and   
economic understanding": the printing sold out some time ago.   
However, he might want to keep his copy as an investment; stamps with   
blemishes often command a high price among collectors; could the same   
logic apply to bibliophiles?  
  
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