In the episode that lends the book its title, the "ugly American" is Homer Atkins, a plain and plain-spoken man, who has been sent by the U.S. government to advise the Southeast Asian country of Sarkhan on engineering projects. When Atkins finds badly misplaced priorities and bluntly challenges the entrenched interests, he lays bare a foreign policy gone dangerously wrong.
First published in 1958, The Ugly American became a runaway national bestseller for its slashing expos of American arrogance, incompetence, and corruption in Southeast Asia. In linked stories and vignettes, the book uses gripping storytelling to draw a devastating picture of how the United States was losing the struggle with Communism in Asia.
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Cold War Politics Political Fiction Contemporary Cultural Fiction Literary Literature & Fictioninspirational, everyone needs a reminder of how they come across when in a new environment.
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The Ugly American succeeds on three major counts:1) The book is a devastating look at the way the American diplomatic corps presents itself abroad. It may have been written decades ago, but given recent events and little evidence that anything has changed in the State Department, the lessons are still extremely applicable to this day. Every foreign service officer should read this as a manual on how to conduct themselves...
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The Ugly American was published in 1958, just after the Soviets put Sputnik in orbit and sent America into a deep funk. The book is as interesting for its idealized picture of communist accomplishments in foreign relations as it is for the dreary picture of Americans abroad. The authors attribute high quality training and patient well thought out policies to the Soviets. The American don't speak the language. The Americans...
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The Ugly American is a collection of about 20 fictional short stories based in Asia after World War II, when communism was a gaining momentum in the region. The stories, however, are based on factual experiences of the authors in South East-Asia and some of the characters are also based on real people.Each tale is an enchanting story. The characterization is wonderful and the lessons of cultural sensitivity - or lack of...
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I read this book in the 60s as a student and was appalled at the behavior of Americans abroad - sad but true. I reintroduced this book in an International marketing class last year in order to get students to think about our American image today: have we improved or is the image in the book of an "ugly American" alive and well? The overwhelming view is that we are still acting and being perceived as arrogant, prejudiced and...
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