Why France?: American Historians Reflect on an Enduring Fascination

by Laura Lee Downs (Editor), Stephane Gerson (Editor), Roger Chartier (Afterword)

Overview

France has long attracted the attention of many of America's most accomplished historians. The field of French history has been vastly influential in American thought, both within the academy and beyond, regardless of France's standing among U.S. political and cultural elites. Even though other countries, from Britain to China, may have had a greater impact on American history, none has exerted quite the same hold on the American historical imagination, particularly in the post-1945 era.

To gain a fresh perspective on this passionate relationship, Laura Lee Downs and Stéphane Gerson commissioned a diverse array of historians to write autobiographical essays in which they explore their intellectual, political, and personal engagements with France and its past. In addition to the essays, Why France? includes a lengthy introduction by the editors and an afterword by one of France's most distinguished historians, Roger Chartier. Taken together, these essays provide a rich and thought-provoking portrait of France, the Franco-American relationship, and a half-century of American intellectual life, viewed through the lens of the best scholarship on France.

Contributors: Ken Alder, Northwestern University; John W. Baldwin, The Johns Hopkins University; Edward Berenson, New York University; Herrick Chapman, New York University; Roger Chartier, cole des Hautes tudes en Sciences Sociales; Clare Haru Crowston, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; Barbara Diefendorf, Boston University; Laura Lee Downs, cole des Hautes tudes en Sciences Sociales; Stéphane Gerson, New York University; Jan Goldstein, The University of Chicago; Lynn Hunt, UCLA; Steven Kaplan, Cornell University; Thomas Kselman, Notre Dame University; Herman Lebovics, SUNY Stony Brook; Robert Paxton, Columbia University; Todd Shepard, The Johns Hopkins University; Leonard V. Smith, Oberlin College; Gabrielle Spiegel, The Johns Hopkins University; Tyler Stovall, University of California, Berkeley

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780801475702
Publisher:	Cornell University Press
Publication date:	10/23/2009
Pages:	256
Product dimensions:	5.60(w) x 8.70(h) x 0.70(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Laura Lee Downs is Professor of History at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales. She is the author of Manufacturing Inequality: Gender Divisions in the French and British Metalworking Industries (also from Cornell), Childhood in the Promised Land: Working Class Movements and the Colonies de Vacances in France, and Writing Gender History. Stéphane Gerson is Associate Professor of French and French Studies at New York University. He is the author of The Pride of Place: Local Memories and Political Culture in Nineteenth-Century France, also from Cornell. Roger Chartier is a member of the Collége de France, Professor of History at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, and the author of many books, including The Order of Books and Cultural History: Between Practices and Representations.

Table of Contents

Introduction   Laura Lee Downs   Stephane Gerson     1
Medievalist and Francophile Despite Himself   John W. Baldwin     21
A Mid-Atlantic Identity   Robert O. Paxton     35
Tough Love for France   Herman Lebovics     47
Fantasy Meets Reality: A Midwesterner Goes to Paris   Lynn Hunt     61
Defense d'afficher...   Steven Laurence Kaplan     73
France for Belgium   Gabrielle M. Spiegel     89
Why Paris?   Barbara B. Diefendorf     99
Catholic Connections, Jewish Relations, French Religion   Thomas Kselman     111
Europe without Personal Angst   Jan Goldstein     123
France, a Political Romance   Edward Berenson     137
Choosing History, Discovering France   Herrick Chapman     151
An African American in Paris   Tyler Stovall     163
Writing at the Margins   Leonard V. Smith     177
It's Not About France   Ken Alder     189
Pilgrim's Progress: From Suburban Canada to Paris (via Montreal, Tokyo, and Tehran)   Clare Haru Crowston     203
Between Douai and the U.S.A.   Todd Shepard     215
Afterword   Roger Chartier     227
Notes     233
List of Contributors     239

What People are Saying About This

Natalie Zemon Davis

Sixteen American historians, some old, some young, tell us here why they chose to become historians of France and what that country means to them—from their first scary encounters with the French language, archives, and bureaucrats to their enduring connections with French scholars, friends, and the French countryside. Chance, family life, teachers, and politics—both American and French—are all part of the story. Entertaining, frank, and informal, these essays show us historians at work and France in a new light.

Priscilla Parkhurst Ferguson

This is a wonderful book! Great fun to read, profoundly moving at times, these intensely personal histories show intellectual reflection at its best-thoughtful, attentive to the larger issues yet mindful of the drama, even trauma, of encountering a culture that intrigues and disconcerts in equal measure. France is not only the subject that these scholars investigate but also part of the women and men that they have become.

Editorial Reviews

Why France? is a mirror of intelligence in which France may see itself reflected.

Rue 89 - Jean-Frederic Schaub

These historians are not afraid to open up and reveal their sensibility, even their sensuality. They express the richness of their historical vocation and the gains of a self-discovery that is made possible or intensified by distance and alterity. Their confidences, sometimes colored by tenderness, express candidly an attachment to France that changes form across time.

Le Monde - Alain Corbin

France, eternal and changing, is examined without concessions, especially in its relationship with the U.S. A beautiful, two-way history lesson.

Le Point - Laurent Theis

These lively, funny, insightful essays, caught between the objective approach of historical reality and a fuzzier, unstable sentimental perspective, make up a photo album of postwar France.

Liberation - Rogert Maggiori

Why France? is a mirror of intelligence in which France may see itself reflected.

--Jean-Frederic Schaub "Rue 89"

An entertaining and thought-provoking series of meditations... The tales from the archive become new ways to understand how individual scholarship is shaped by and can in turn shape intellectual trends.

--Jeffrey Jackson "Modern and Contemporary France"

France, eternal and changing, is examined without concessions, especially in its relationship with the U.S. A beautiful, two-way history lesson.

--Laurent Theis "Le Point"

These historians are not afraid to open up and reveal their sensibility, even their sensuality. They express the richness of their historical vocation and the gains of a self-discovery that is made possible or intensified by distance and alterity. Their confidences, sometimes colored by tenderness, express candidly an attachment to France that changes form across time.

--Alain Corbin "Le Monde"

These lively, funny, insightful essays, caught between the objective approach of historical reality and a fuzzier, unstable sentimental perspective, make up a photo album of postwar France.

--Rogert Maggiori "Liberation"

This eminently readable book is a must-read for all teachers of French civilization.

--Tom Conner "French Review"

From the Publisher

An entertaining and thought-provoking series of meditations... The tales from the archive become new ways to understand how individual scholarship is shaped by and can in turn shape intellectual trends.

Modern and Contemporary France - Jeffrey Jackson

This eminently readable book is a must-read for all teachers of French civilization.

French Review - Tom Conner