the question of why British and American romances sell so well in other countries has not been answered. I suggest that one way to understand the wide-spread function of romances better is through a reassessment of the role that national culture plays in these novels.
This reassessment will deal mainly with the romance novels themselves, starting with the hypothesis that they function strongly as national cultural memory and that they preserve national cultural experience despite their international marketing and standardization. (196)
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The contents of the cultural memory differ from one country of origin to another, but there are some common threads. In both British and American romances, the strategies of presentation are similar. Historical information is simplified and harmonized. Often, the history of oppression of ethnic others is not openly denied but is left to the reader's associations and imagination. Acts of colonization are either ignored or glorified in the form of clichés and myths that make colonial oppression appear natural. In novels from both cultures the process of negotiating the meanings of history becomes visible when rigid affirmation of white superiority alternates with the nostalgic admiration of the exotic other, and where romances celebrating intermarriage can coexist with romances denying it. Both the American Indian and the Arab sheikh must know the world of the white heroine to qualify as acceptable partners. This reveals a pattern of white cultural dominance that is similar in Britain and the United States despite their different historical and geographic circumstances. To women, the foreign locale poses a threat but also offers empowerment.
The historical issues at stake vary. In American romances, the relationship with Europe, African-Americans and American Indians are linked with myths of class and classlessness and of place. In British romances, authors rework the colonial past in variations of plot and character. (211)