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.But the significance of theIranian Revolution, as David Calleo reminds us, is not just as an example ofhegemonic decline; it also marked the demise of the postwar American world systembased around the export of Fordism. Khomeini s revolution raised disturbingquestions about the dangers of imposed technocratic development either for thedomestic stability of a developing country or for world order in general , he argues. Iran also revealed the vulnerabilities of American hegemony on the cheap , with surrogates [i.e.the Shah s regime deposed by Khomeini] substituting for directAmerican power. Moreover, the energy crisis precipitated by the ensuing Iran Iraqwar provoked a major political assault on the inflationary Fordist Keynesianconsensus in America itself.The adoption of tight monetary controls late in theCarter administration was the herald of the Reaganomics of the 1980s.It markeda decisive turn within the state apparatus towards the kind of regulatoryarrangements that would characterise the period of militant economic restructuringand internationalisation of that decade.As Calleo puts it, Thanks to Khomeini, therewas [Chairman of the Federal Reserve] Volcker (Calleo, 1982: pp.160, 173). NATIONAL ALLEGORY AND THE ROMANCE OF UNDERDEVELOPMENT: THE NAMES 183The Names is situated in Greece, mainly Athens, where Axton is based as a riskanalyst for what he calls a sprawling corporation (Names: p.300).But the novelranges widely across both space and time, taking in most of the Middle East andIndia, as well as recapitulating action that occurs in Canada, in California during the1960s, and in the American mid-west during the depression of the 1930s.And thenature of the relationship between temporal and spatial shifts, between historicaland geographical processes, is one of DeLillo s (as well as Axton s) primary interests.Axton himself is an appropriately globalised or dispersed individual, the reasons forthis being both private or psychological and public or historical.In one sense he isa product of capital s intensified spatial mobility in this period of crisis andheightened international competition.His job involves the gathering and processingof data on the volatile political and economic situation in the Middle East forcompanies seeking to invest there, or to protect already existing investments.Withrespect to the globalisation of capital, then, we might say that Axton is a fullyconscious agent of the process, a player in the game of international corporatecommerce, even a running dog of late capitalism, to invoke the titles of the twoDeLillo novels that preceded The Names.5In another sense, though, Axton is on a highly personal quest.He has taken thejob in Athens in order to be near his estranged wife and child who are involved inan archaeological dig on one of the Greek islands.The archaeological task ofexcavating and then seeking to reassemble the shards of collapsed or eclipsedcultures and civilisations is the presiding metaphor for Axton s personal quest torepair, or at least understand, the disintegration of his marriage.(Indeed, as we shallsee, a kind of archaeological desire to encounter prior historical modes of productionand ways of life motivates Axton in his global peregrinations.) But this particularpersonal project spills over into two others: the quest to locate and understand amysterious cult whose bizarre ritual murders seem to be committed according tosome kind of peculiar spatial logic or code; and the attempt to uncover a suspectedconspiracy of Greek nationalists for whose violent anti-Americanism Axtonimagines himself to be a possible target.Here again the personal and the politicaloverlap directly, and this is effected through the category of nationality, throughAxton s acutely and uncomfortably felt Americanness. American is the final itemon Axton s personal list of the 27 depravities through which he imagines his wife(who is Canadian) enumerating her reasons for leaving him (Names: p.17).Evenat such an intimate level, then, personal relations are mediated by geopolitics.Themarriage cannot but refigure Canadian American power imbalances so that itbecomes inhabited by the theme of expansionism.the colonialist theme, the themeof exploitation (Names: p.266) [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
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.But the significance of theIranian Revolution, as David Calleo reminds us, is not just as an example ofhegemonic decline; it also marked the demise of the postwar American world systembased around the export of Fordism. Khomeini s revolution raised disturbingquestions about the dangers of imposed technocratic development either for thedomestic stability of a developing country or for world order in general , he argues. Iran also revealed the vulnerabilities of American hegemony on the cheap , with surrogates [i.e.the Shah s regime deposed by Khomeini] substituting for directAmerican power. Moreover, the energy crisis precipitated by the ensuing Iran Iraqwar provoked a major political assault on the inflationary Fordist Keynesianconsensus in America itself.The adoption of tight monetary controls late in theCarter administration was the herald of the Reaganomics of the 1980s.It markeda decisive turn within the state apparatus towards the kind of regulatoryarrangements that would characterise the period of militant economic restructuringand internationalisation of that decade.As Calleo puts it, Thanks to Khomeini, therewas [Chairman of the Federal Reserve] Volcker (Calleo, 1982: pp.160, 173). NATIONAL ALLEGORY AND THE ROMANCE OF UNDERDEVELOPMENT: THE NAMES 183The Names is situated in Greece, mainly Athens, where Axton is based as a riskanalyst for what he calls a sprawling corporation (Names: p.300).But the novelranges widely across both space and time, taking in most of the Middle East andIndia, as well as recapitulating action that occurs in Canada, in California during the1960s, and in the American mid-west during the depression of the 1930s.And thenature of the relationship between temporal and spatial shifts, between historicaland geographical processes, is one of DeLillo s (as well as Axton s) primary interests.Axton himself is an appropriately globalised or dispersed individual, the reasons forthis being both private or psychological and public or historical.In one sense he isa product of capital s intensified spatial mobility in this period of crisis andheightened international competition.His job involves the gathering and processingof data on the volatile political and economic situation in the Middle East forcompanies seeking to invest there, or to protect already existing investments.Withrespect to the globalisation of capital, then, we might say that Axton is a fullyconscious agent of the process, a player in the game of international corporatecommerce, even a running dog of late capitalism, to invoke the titles of the twoDeLillo novels that preceded The Names.5In another sense, though, Axton is on a highly personal quest.He has taken thejob in Athens in order to be near his estranged wife and child who are involved inan archaeological dig on one of the Greek islands.The archaeological task ofexcavating and then seeking to reassemble the shards of collapsed or eclipsedcultures and civilisations is the presiding metaphor for Axton s personal quest torepair, or at least understand, the disintegration of his marriage.(Indeed, as we shallsee, a kind of archaeological desire to encounter prior historical modes of productionand ways of life motivates Axton in his global peregrinations.) But this particularpersonal project spills over into two others: the quest to locate and understand amysterious cult whose bizarre ritual murders seem to be committed according tosome kind of peculiar spatial logic or code; and the attempt to uncover a suspectedconspiracy of Greek nationalists for whose violent anti-Americanism Axtonimagines himself to be a possible target.Here again the personal and the politicaloverlap directly, and this is effected through the category of nationality, throughAxton s acutely and uncomfortably felt Americanness. American is the final itemon Axton s personal list of the 27 depravities through which he imagines his wife(who is Canadian) enumerating her reasons for leaving him (Names: p.17).Evenat such an intimate level, then, personal relations are mediated by geopolitics.Themarriage cannot but refigure Canadian American power imbalances so that itbecomes inhabited by the theme of expansionism.the colonialist theme, the themeof exploitation (Names: p.266) [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]