Fascination and Misgivings
Fascination and Misgivings
Through the views of French travelers and diverse French studies about the United States, this book shows how French opinion of the United States evolved during the late nineteenth century. Aspects of American life were puzzling and exotic to the French, yet American towns and industry gave the proof of an emerging economic power, and American society provided attractive models of social engineering. Even before World War I, the United States found its place in French opinion, following trends that continued throughout the twentieth century: fascination and misgivings, attraction and repulsion.
- Unique in the scope of the research; gives an example of how public opinion evolves and changes
- Explains how the USA can be accepted or rejected by foreign countries
- The French edition won the first OAH Foreign-Language Book Prize and a prize from the French Academy of Belles Lettres
Awards
Fascination and Misgivings received the Gilbert Chinard Prize, for a book in English about Franco-American relations, given by the Society for French Historical Studies.
Reviews & endorsements
"Meticulously researched, [an] elegantly written work." Journal of Modern History
Product details
October 2000Hardback
9780521653237
468 pages
229 × 152 × 18 mm
0.46kg
Available
Table of Contents
- Preface Claude Fohlen
- Introduction
- Part I. The United States as Exoticism:
- 1. The journey
- 2. At first sight
- 3. Western
- 4. Les Nègres
- 5. A 'manipulated and mechanized life'
- Part II. Models from the United States:
- 6. A truly American democracy
- 7. A political life without grandeur
- 8. The new world of education
- 9. La Belle Américaine
- 10. From the Mormons to Americanism
- 11. Social hell or social harmony?
- Part III. The United States as Power:
- 12. Immigration: strength or weakness?
- 13. Business
- 14. And now, imperialism
- 15. Is there a culture in the United States?
- Conclusion
- Selective bibliography
- Index.
