Notes on a Foreign Country

Starred review from May 8, 2017
After moving to Turkey in 2007, American journalist Hansen, who writes for the New York Times Magazine, came to the startling realization that America seen from abroad is a wholly different entity from the America she knew. Hansen explores her own loss of innocence, as her belief in American grandiosity, exceptionalism, and humanitarianism is deeply shaken by the destruction wrought by the U.S. in the Middle East. The first chapters describe Hansen’s encounters with Turkish nationalism and her painful acquaintance with a new view of her country’s history. Subsequent chapters explore the ways American interventions have spread wars, propped up dictators, destroyed landscapes in the name of modernization, and spurred the rise of Islamic fundamentalism throughout the Middle and Near East. Lucid, reflective, probing, and poetic, Hansen’s book is also a searing critique of the ugly depths of American ignorance, made more dangerous because the declining U.S. imperial system coincides with decay at home. The book is a revelatory indictment of American policy both domestic and foreign, made gripping by Hansen’s confident—if overreaching—distillation of complicated historical processes and her detailed, evocative descriptions of places, people, and experiences most American audiences can’t imagine.

June 15, 2017
A journalist questions the notion of American exceptionalism.When New York Times Magazine contributing writer Hansen arrived in Turkey in 2007 on a research fellowship, she harbored a deep faith in America's "inherent goodness, as well as in my country's Western way of living, and perhaps in my own inherent, God-given, Christian-American goodness as well." She assumed that any nation's move toward modernity "in the American sense" meant progress. Growing up in suburban New Jersey, where international geography had been cut from the school curriculum, she knew little about the world; even as an undergraduate at the University of Pennsylvania, she hardly noticed international events. Living in a "zone of miraculous neutrality" about her country's role in foreign affairs, she naively and complacently believed America to have "uniquely benevolent intentions toward the peoples of the world." That view changed dramatically as she traveled through the Middle East, reading history and political analysis and conducting many interviews in Turkey, Afghanistan, Greece, Egypt, Iraq, and Iran. She discovered that fear of "communism, Islamism, or any other enemyism of the United States" led America to foster military dictatorships rather than risk the outcomes of democratic elections. Talking with Egyptian dissidents and Muslim Brothers, for example, Hansen learned of the corruption, torture, and repression resulting from American efforts to undermine Egypt with the aim of gaining power in the Arab world. She concludes that keeping Americans unaware about global issues has served such efforts, unleashed hatred abroad, and contributed to the rise of Donald Trump. Examining her own identity as an observer and writer forms a recurring theme: was she endorsing America's penchant for denial if she wrote about a foreign country without fully understanding its history, including America's role? Hansen offers a heartfelt plea for empathy and a recognition of "the realities of millions of people," but honing a sophisticated global perspective seems far more complicated than she acknowledges here. A mostly illuminating literary debut that shows how Americans' ignorance about the world has made turmoil and terrorism possible.

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June 15, 2017

Why do we as a nation, or any imperial nation, perceive ourselves as superior and therefore justified in altering the social and political course of another sovereign nation? These are the questions Hansen (contributor, New York Times Magazine) asked after relocating on fellowship to Turkey in 2007, finding the experience "a shattering and a shame." As an American, Hansen fights cultural bias and delves into Turkey's history to analyze U.S. interference in nations such as Greece and Afghanistan. The author then compares how our role in Turkey informed the present political result--a return to conservatism with the rule of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Hansen argues that even if we are not directly responsible, our undue influence did help to destabilize the region. Following the 2016 attempted military coup in Turkey, this timely account stands on its own. However, a staggering number of travel, scholarly, political, and literary writers are referenced to the detriment of the casual reader. Despite these issues, it remains a unique work that will find its place among a dedicated audience. VERDICT This personal memoir of cultural exploration teaches us how to see the world in greater context.--Jessica Bushore, Xenia, OH

Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from July 1, 2017
Americans are taught that they are exceptional, brave, and fearless. Hansen's must-read book makes the argument that Americans, specifically white Americans, are decades overdue in examining and accepting their country's imperial identity. In 2007, journalist Hansen won a fellowship to live abroad and chose Turkey because American author James Baldwin wrote he felt more like himself, a gay, black man living in the 1960s, in Istanbul than New York. How could that be? Hansen's argument goes beyond the factual assertion that Americans are ignorant of the country's long, complicated, invasive histories with many other countries around the world. She makes the paradigm-breaking claim that what Americans are taught about their national and personal identities disallows the very acquisition of this knowledge. When a mine collapses in the Turkish city Soma and she asks for the cause, she's stunned that people want to talk about American foreign policy from the 1950s. Only after years of living in Turkey can Hansen frame interview questions with an awareness of her American biases. Hansen builds her winning argument by combining personal examination and observation with geopolitical history lessons. She is a fearless patriot, and this is a book for the brave.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)