Eric Shiraev and Vladislav Zubok interweave public opinion, personal insight, and sound psycho-political theory to investigate the development of anti-American sentiment in Russia. As the authors skilfully show, America has played an integral role in 20^th century constructions of Russian identity, though not necessarily in the one-sided manner suggested by the book’s title. Indeed, key to both the “old” and “new” forms of anti-Americanism discussed by Shiraev and Zubok is a certain “ambivalence” towards America (11). This ambivalence is not endemic to Russia and, in fact, is an attitude shared by many of us who are quick to critique America whilst wearing Nike shoes, watching MTV, or drinking Starbucks. There are, in other words, important differences to be made between American culture and American foreign policy and the authors are sensitive to this in regards to Russian anti-Americanism.

Thus, as Russian teenagers swooned to American rock-n-roll and elite policymakers marvelled at American technological advances in industry, an “old” form of anti-Americanism was simultaneously produced from the “official ideology of class struggle and reinforced by the concept of imperialist encirclement nourished by Cold War confrontation[s]” (2). Because such a form of anti-American sentiment relied heavily on a society isolated from the growing gap between capital’s plenitude and Communism’s privation, it is not surprising that, with Gorbachev’s policy of openness to the West, many Russians came to reject the “old” and, with time, embrace a “new” form of anti-Americanism.

By the late 1980s, Russian ambivalence towards America swung decidedly towards a “pro-Americanism” that not only acted as a “symbol of rejection of the Communist past” and a “promise of Russia’s integration into the international community” but also constituted a part of a bourgeoning post-Soviet Russian identity (27). In the euphoria following the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russians embraced American democracy and, more importantly, American economic policy in the belief that with rapid and radical socio-economic change the privations of the past could be forgotten and Western (read: American) aid would be forthcoming. Hindsight shows that such a belief never became reality and the extreme hardships suffered by Russians in the transition to a democratic market economy meant that the initial “pro-American” optimism eventually faded.

Shiraev and Zubok are, however, careful to point out that the “new” anti-Americanism that took hold by the mid-1990s was not simply a result of Western reluctance to offer some sort of “post-Soviet Marshall Plan” or even the dismal failure of economic “shock therapy.” Rather, “new” anti-American sentiments stemmed from these factors as they became “political currency” for politicians in a new democracy and/or popular stories in a newly freed media as both sought to tap into growing public frustrations over economic woes, foreign policy impotence, and “anti-Russian” perceptions. Thus, NATO enlargement into Eastern Europe as well as American-lead interventions in Kosovo only exacerbated widespread feelings within Russia that “pro-American” sentiment was counterproductive to both domestic and foreign agendas. Russia needed to find its own way, Russians their own voice. 

The biggest drawback of this book is its age. Published in 2000, the analysis misses out on important developments both in the United States (e.g. the election of George W Bush) and Russia (e.g. the Putin presidency and an economic boom from record oil prices) and consequently is not a current measure of anti-Americanism in Russia. However, as an insightful and, in some instances, intuitive piece of historical work (especially predictions over Russia’s move towards an “authoritarian democracy” under Putin), those interested in the foundations of current Russo-American relations may do well to give this book a closer look.