Forlaget skriver om denne boka:
The author has played a predominant part in the development of American Studies in Europe after World War ll. In this book he outlines his personal background and describes the dramatic events which in 1940 took him to America and five years in US government service, his appointment to the first university professorship of American Literature in the Scandinavian countries, and his manysided international work in furthering American studies.
He also gives a sketch of his motley activities as an Americanist outside Academe, as a poet and translator, publicist and public speaker, and graphically describes his extensive travelling in America, Europe and the Far East, with glimpses of the many personalities with whom he has come in contact. The book is an eloquent testimony to European attitudes and reactions in recent generations towards the United States, as recorded by a scolar placed at a vantage point of observation.