'We are Facing Ahead, Not Backward!': A Note on the Historiography of Global America

Much of the debate regarding postwar American cultural power and cultural hegemony tends to pivot around a 'Cold War paradigm' in which the emergence of global culture is read as a factor decisively tied to issues of geopolitical necessity. Although the Cold War is important, we might benefit from a more complex historiography of America's global culture. Drawing on empirical research relating to two American public relations campaigns, the emergence of American culture is revealed as a more complicated phenomenon. Paying particular attention to the continuities which link postwar culture to practices from the interwar period, we may acknowledge the diverse contexts from which global culture emerged in the 20th century. This complexity can guide productive critical analysis not only of the historical emergence of global culture but also of our own political present.