Hating America: The New World Sport [Hardcover]

John Gibson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 13, 2004

John Gibson is one of the Fox News Channel's most outspoken personalities. Now, as the aftershocks of the war in Iraq reverberate around the world, Gibson exposes the outrageous tenor of anti-American sentiment filling newsprint and airwaves beyond our borders and how disagreements over policy have mushroomed into poisonous hatred.

From the "Arab street" to the halls of even the most historically friendly foreign governments, extreme anti-Americanism has grown disturbingly pervasive throughout the world since the shell-shocking moment of 9/11. Over the year that followed, Gibson writes, "I began to watch the overseas press with a morbid fascination punctuated by bursts of outrage. The things that were being said about America and Americans were marked by an off-the-charts level of venom, a scandalous parade of mistaken assumptions, an endless font of suspicion, mistrust, and the promulgation of outright, willful lies. The viciousness of commentary on America was breathtaking."

And, as Gibson traces, the hate speech has gone well beyond the usual suspects in the Middle East, infecting our erstwhile allies in Europe, Asia, and even Canada. British Prime Minister Tony Blair complained that "some of the rhetoric I hear used about America is more savage than some of the rhetoric I hear about Saddam and the Iraqi regime." Presumptuous Belgian officials attempted to bring American officials up on war-crimes charges. And special hatred was reserved for President George W. Bush, whom one Australian newspaper dismissed as "the village idiot."

As America defends its security in the ongoing war on terror, Gibson argues, we must be prepared to face this growing tide of resentment abroad, which will only result in serious consequences for the haters themselves. For the anti-Americans, he argues, would "like us to forget that those who hate us may eventually try to kill us -- because they now know that we will never allow that to happen without exacting a price on those who would attempt it."

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Anti-American backlash over the invasion of Iraq gets a rejoinder in this rancorous manifesto. Fox News Channel pundit Gibson takes on a wide array of targets in "the great pageant of Hating America," including Arabs (many of whom have "mindless hatred" for the U.S.), Germans (who find a "pure, addictive pleasure" in anti-Americanism), the British (whom, he suggests, hate themselves for not hating Americans enough) and, of course, the French (who live in Chirac’s "anti-American nation"). Gibson does unearth a lot of America-hating, from an Egyptian columnist’s likening of Americans to cannibals, to bizarre German 9/11 conspiracy theories, to British novelist Margaret Drabble’s confession that "I loathe America." But his main charge, leveled through a rehash of UN wranglings during the run-up to the war in Iraq, is simply that other countries didn’t understand our feelings after 9/11 and didn’t support the American invasion. By lumping this reluctance under the rubric of hatred, Gibson reduces serious policy differences to emotional animus, mostly motivated either by the fear and envy the rest of the globe-including the "soft-life Euro-paradise"-feels towards America’s "hard power," or by the sort of irrational tribal antagonisms characteristic of the sports world. This rhetorical strategy is ironic, given Gibson’s own emotional appeal to the ruins of Ground Zero to argue that "America should not be required to prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt" when it goes after threats like Saddam Hussein. Gibson’s truculent tone ("The rest of the world can go to hell. It wasn’t attacked. We were. And we’ll judge who plotted against us and who is plotting still") will alienate readers who aren’t already predisposed to his views, and might be perceived as another fine example of American belligerence. Photos.
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About the Author

John Gibson is the host of the Fox News Channel's "The Big Story with John Gibson." Before that he hosted "Newschat" and "Internight" on MSNBC. He has also been a correspondent for NBC News on the West Coast, where he reported on the O. J. Simpson criminal trial, America's involvement in Mogadishu, Somalia, and the invasion of the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas. Gibson lives in New Jersey.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: William Morrow; 1 edition (April 13, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060580100
• ISBN-13: 978-0060580100
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.1 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (95 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,863,100 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

45 of 51 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars 70% of these reviewers do not honestly critique this book!, April 30, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: Hating America: The New World Sport (Hardcover)

Isn't great to choose sides either liberal or conservative and then state your party line instead of providing an honest critque of this new book by John Gibson?

I felt that the book gives very clear and factual information backing up the claim that many in the world hate America, and a good explanation as to why this is. If you want to sum up the "why" we are hated into one or two words or sentences (like a good many of the Amazon reviewers have opted to do) you will miss some real insight and perspective on this complex and emotionally charged subject.

Do I believe (almost 35 percent of the reviews here) that the author misses the point that the world hates George W. Bush instead of the American people and therefore the book is a garbage read and only worth a one star review? No!

Do I believe that there are a lot of people that are envious of the wealth and power that our country has been blessed with and has worked very hard for? Yes, they are out there. And this book brings the attitudes and mindset of these individuals into greater clarity and understanding.

I see this same attitude almost every day here my city. People that see someone that has "more" than them, and hating them because of it. The fact that many are willing to kill someone because they are envious is a story that has been replayed time and time again throughout history.

Hey, if your mind is made up, I don't want to confuse you with the facts! This book looks at the issue with a certain measure of political bias (Gibson is a Fox news conservative journalist) but I feel it is worth reading for it's perspective and attempt to shed more light on the "America Haters."

Knowing the "why" of a particular matter is an important first step in DOING something about it. Gibson provides well researched arguments backed by solid sources which form a strong foundation for his conclusions. I welcome reading a different book from the liberal side that deals with this same issue. If it exists, I haven't found it yet.

I liked the writing style, and found that like LA LAKERS guard Kobe Bryant, Gibson could be misunderstood for being a bit of an egotist. Oftentimes people that are passionate about something (basketball in Bryant's case) can be misperceived as being arogant, when in fact, they are simply exceptional at what they do, or highly knowledgeable about the subject. Gibson impressed me as being the later.

As for the reviewers who saw Hating America as essentially a political sales pitch, I don't see many of you providing suggestions for alternate books which deal with this subject from a non political perspective. If someone would like to provide some titles, I would gladly give them a read.

To sum it up, not a flawless book, but certainly worth a four star review.

147 of 190 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Read It!, June 12, 2004

By 

Susan Norton (Australia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Hating America: The New World Sport (Hardcover)

I'm Australian, and like most Aussies I grumble about America from time to time. But, and also like most Aussies, I know it's the best, most successful, most intelligent, most humane, most cultured and most admirable society on Earth, the true beacon of human achievement and the light and inspiration of the world. Yes, for all its faults which I know all about.

I am, it is true, half British. Modern British envy of America saddens me, as the envy-and-nihilism-intoxicated ravings of the loathsome, freakish Margaret Drabble and Harold Pinter and their likes fill me with utter disgust and shame.

As an Aussie, I, like most people in the developed world, owe my high standard of living directly of America and I know it. Not only because of American inventiveness and marketing. Nott only because America saved our bacon in world War II and ronald Reagan saved us from the threat of nuclear annhilation more recently. The American alliance allows us to keep our defence spending down to 2% of GDP. We loaf at America's expence, let it pay for two-thirds of our security, resent it, and scream for help when we're in trouble. We're not as bad, not as envy and inferiority consumed, not as neurotic and self-hating, as the French and Germans, but we could be a lot better, and yes, more grateful.

The Poles and people in Eastern Europe don't hate America. Their liberation by America is close enough in time for them still to remember it.

One word of advice to Americans: You are loved, you are admired, by people all over the globe. Don't forget your friends, and perhaps give them a bigger word of praise than you sometimes have in the past. America attracts more resentment because its culture tends not to acknowledge its friends than for perhaps anything else.

Read this book to understand one of the most dangerous, sick and disgusting pathologies in the world, and help do something to stop it.

God Bless America!

24 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I call 'em like I see 'em..., April 16, 2004

By 

Troy B. Freeman (Thousand Oaks, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Hating America: The New World Sport (Hardcover)

Excellent reading (unless you're a flaming liberal). You might also like Anti-Americanism by Jean Fracois Revel.