Like many of Greene's spy, or espio nage, novels. The Quiet American is concerned with the effect the superpowers have when they intervene in the politics of the developing nations, in this case, Vietnam during the last days of French colonial rule. Greene himself is in an interesting position in that England, once a major colonial power, has increasingly surrendered that position to the United States since World War II; as the British character Fowler says to the American Pyle, "We're the old colonials." This weakened position makes Greene, like Fowler, something of an observer of the more active Americans. Fowler observes the "covert actions" of Pyle (almost everyone in the novel seems to have full knowledge of these covert activities), and finds them wrong: He thinks Americans are politically naive, dangerously idealistic, and too willing.....
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