Reseña: In Defence Of America“ By Bronwen Maddox

REVIEW: “IN DEFENCE OF AMERICA“ by BRONWEN MADDOX

Bronwen Maddox has a degree in Politics, Philosophy and Economics from St John‟s College, Oxford. She has dual US-British nationality and grew up in London and Washington, DC in a transatlantic family with an American mother and British father. She is a Governor of the Ditchley Foundation, the historic conference centre which fosterstransatlantic relations; a Member of the Council (a Trustee) of Chatham House, the foreign affairs think-tank based in London; and a Trustee of the Imperial War Museum. She has been appointed the Editor and Chief Executive of Prospect magazine, a leading current affairs and culture title based in the UK. She is Chief Foreign Commentator of The Times. She is an oped columnist, one of the authors of thepaper's Economic View column, and she writes a commentary on foreign affairs in the news pages, which has become one of the best-known fixtures in British journalism. Her columns are known for their crisp style and for not being afraid to reach a judgement on the day‟s events, while avoiding political ideology. They attract a vigorous comment from thousands of readers online around the world. She isthe author of Previously and In Defence of America. She was an investment analyst in the City and on Wall Street, and a Director of Kleinwort Benson Securities, now part of Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein, where she ran its highly-rated team recommending investment in world media stocks. She is an accomplished public speaker and chair of debates, for many kinds of audiences, including financial andmilitary, and for many kinds of events, from after-dinner talks to seminars. She appears frequently on television and radio in the UK and US. In Defence of America, is a book published in the UK and US in 2008 and has been reprinted in 2009. In this book the Chief Foreign Commentator at The Times Bronwen Maddox defends America against its detractors. The book shows a Eurocentric point-of-view, aviewpoint that accepts most of the usual criticisms as valid ones and quarrels with them only as to matter of degree. The author had to face a rather difficult task as anti-Americanism is a reality all over the world. Even after the end of Communism this anti-Americanism impulse persists, even among other capitalists‟ countries. For a brief moment following the terrorist attacks of September 11,some hoped that, at least out of sympathy, people overseas might put aside their long-held dislike for the United States. But it was just a hope. The world has turned against the United States in recent years. The invasion of Iraq, America's refusal to sign the Kyoto accords, detention without trial in Guantanamo, and in general the America‟s foreign policies and attitudes in the rest of the world-all have contributed to a feeling that the United States is abusing its position as the world's sole superpower. The author tries to defend America from its hardest critics by talking about these topics along the different chapters of the book. She says that she has written this book because she considered as unfair all the criticism directed to the

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REVIEW: “IN

DEFENCE OF AMERICA“ byBRONWEN MADDOX

United States. As she puts it, "The accusations take the best of the United States for granted while exaggerating the worst, and ignore the complexity forced on America by its size and its constitution." She even points out that all this criticism is just the consequences of envy or fear of the unique superpower of the world. The book is divided into 11 chapters. Every chapter‟stitle is a brief summary of what is going to be talked about in the chapter, starting with “Why America needs a defence”, where she makes a detailed explanation of what we will find in the rest of the chapters, and ending with “What the United States and American can do about it” and her own optimistic conclusion. The final sentence “The USA might now temper its approach with more realism, and...