Journal of American Studies of Turkey

2 (1995):81-82.

Book Review

Amerikan Biçimi Yaþam (American Way of Life) by Zekeriya Sertel, May 1994, 92
pages. Available from: Yapı Kredi Publications, İstiklâl Cad. 285-7 Kat: 5 B Blok
Beyoğlu 80050 Istanbul.

Ayşe Kırtunç

American Way of Life is a short collection of the impressions of the author of the
times he lived in the United States. The author, Zekeriya Sertel (1890- 1980) is a
Turkish journalist who has had part of his training in the US between 1919-1924.
He has lived in the United States also in the 1940s and later during the 1970s. In a
brief preface to the book, his daughter Yildiz Sertel, who has given the final shape
to the text, informs the reader that the book was written towards the end of the
1970s.

The book is organized under three main headings: American way of life, politics in
the US and social life in the US. Each main heading is further divided into smaller
chapters that deal with specific aspects of American life such as, "mechanization,"
"Nixon's America" and "an American family."

The writer begins by saying that he will not undertake to analyze the historical,
social and economic factors that constitute the American way of life, but will only
comment on the lifestyle that he has personally experienced during his stay in the
US. However, this disclaimer is soon made void; Sertel describes the inner
workings of American democracy by analyzing different patterns of the United
States: the presidential elections, the power of the media, bipartisanism, education
and agribusiness.

Writing during the post-Vietnam, post-Watergate 1970s, when the disillusionment

with the American Dream reached an unprecedented high, Zekeriya Sertel is
severely critical of the crass materialism, the loss of humanitarian values and the
insufficiency of the welfare systems in the US. Sertel asserts that US as an
imperialistic power has actively supported subversive movements that worked to
undermine the national security in various countries.
Zekeriya Sertel compares and contrasts the capitalist and socialist systems and
worldviews in various places in the world. The US provides the example for the
capitalist system whereas the USSR and China provide socialist examples. In
almost all cases, Sertel maintains that the capitalist system fails to provide
satisfactory solutions to such issues as the welfare state, democratic family patterns,
women's rights and university education. He aims at showing how the capitalist
system falls short of providing wealth and happiness for the majority of the people,
and how the socialist systems have already established mechanisms that deliver
positive results.

Sertel also comments on the positive aspects of the American culture. For example,
"the tradition of washing their dirty laundry where everyone can observe it" (65) is
highly commendable. Hence, after using the Watergate scandal as an example of
how the capitalistic craving for unchecked power may corrupt, he points out the
positive aspects of the incident: although the wrongdoer was a president, the media
fearlessly exercised the power to inform the public of the corruption. Sertel is
favorably impressed by the fact that the judicial powers had the temerity to handle
the case as if they were processing any other common crime, and that the power of
the president was not strong enough to hush the scandal. In fact, throughout the
book, Sertel applauds the tradition of the American media to speak freely and to
inform the public.

The book is a valuable historical document that reflects the typical left-wing
discourse of the 1970s in Turkey. The reflections of daily life are sensitive and
illuminating. Many issues central to the multicultural American experience of the
1990s exist in their earlier forms in the book. Although the discourse is somewhat
dated, and the contrasts with "opposing" systems rather smug and forced, the book
approaches a wide range of topics that have been vitally important in the US during
the second half of the twentieth century. Through it all, one can observe the
poignant personal assessment of a journalist who has been an eyewitness to
different decades of the American way of life, from the early 1920s to the late
1970s.