Seducing the French: The Dilemma of Americanization [Paperback]

Richard F. Kuisel (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 27, 1997 | ISBN-10: 0520206983 | ISBN-13: 978-0520206984

When Coca-Cola was introduced in France in the late 1940s, the country's most prestigious newspaper warned that Coke threatened France's cultural landscape. This is one of the examples cited in Richard Kuisel's engaging exploration of France's response to American influence after World War II. In analyzing early French resistance and then the gradual adaptation to all things American that evolved by the mid-1980s, he offers an intriguing study of national identity and the protection of cultural boundaries.
The French have historically struggled against Americanization in order to safeguard "Frenchness." What would happen to the French way of life if gaining American prosperity brought vulgar materialism and social conformity? A clash between American consumerism and French civilisation seemed inevitable.
Cold War anti-Communism, the Marshall Plan, the Coca-Cola controversy, and de Gaulle's efforts to curb American investment illustrate ways that anti-Americanization was played out. Kuisel also raises issues that extend beyond France, including the economic, social, and cultural effects of the Americanized consumer society that have become a global phenomenon.
Kuisel's lively account reaches across French society to include politicians, businessmen, trade unionists, Parisian intelligentsia, and ordinary citizens. The result reveals much about the French--and about Americans. As Euro Disney welcomes travellers to its Parisian fantasyland, and with French recently declared the official language of France (to defend it from the encroachments of English), Kuisel's book is especially relevant.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In this selective study of American influence on postwar France, Kuisel ( Capitalism and the State of Modern France ) capably, if dryly, analyzes a few major points of encounter. A review of anti-American attitudes prevalent before WW II is followed by French leftist criticism of U.S. Cold War efforts such as the Marshall Plan and even a bizarre attack on Coca-Cola when it was introduced in the late 1940s. The spread of American consumerism forced the French to debate the standards of their own civilisation . Although the French view of America softened after the 1956 Soviet intervention in Hungary, Kuisel notes that in the 1960s, De Gaulle expressed antipathy toward this country even while his economic model Americanized France. By then intellectuals had begun to criticize consumer society in general without targeting the U. S. Kuisel suggests that since the '70s, arguments with Americanization center around mass media and culture. While anti-Americanism may have quieted by the 1990s, he observes, "the rivalry is latent and potent." However, a study that fails to discuss the French fascination with Jerry Lewis and Woody Allen has missed an opportunity to lighten up. Illustrations.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Kuisel proposes an examination of French cultural preconceptions and of how the French response to American culture reveals what France thinks of itself. But what is promised by the leading questions, and by the sexy title, is not delivered. Instead, we have a dry history of the waning of French anti-Americanism based largely on the voices of leading French intellectuals, politicians, and journalists. The result is thorough and useful but perhaps not as interesting or incisive as the cultural analysis that might have been. For instance, the most thorough chapter, based extensively on primary sources, recounts the reactions to American affluence of French businessmen brought over under the auspices of Marshall Plan administrators. These reactions shed light on the French response to the imperatives of modernization, but the topic does not make the heart leap.
- Timothy Christenfeld, Columbia Univ.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 293 pages
• Publisher: University of California Press (January 27, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0520206983
• ISBN-13: 978-0520206984
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6.1 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #184,108 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Intriguing study of a touchy subject, September 27, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Seducing the French: The Dilemma of Americanization (Paperback)

This book does a very good job of explaining why, more than other Europeans, many French get hot under the collar about American economic and cultural "imperialism". It is particularly strong on the period from the late 1940s to the early 1970s. Some readers might feel that Kuisel could have developed in greater detail his concluding argument that it's all about the fact that France and America are really the only two countries in the world with a feeling that they have a "universal message". This is surely the heart of the matter. Also, from the perspective of 2000, his rather upbeat chapter about how the French became significantly more pro-American toward the end of the last century looks in need of adjustment. But it's definitively recommended reading.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating Study, Obvious Conclusions, January 13, 2005

By 

Gregory Canellis "Student of military history... (Tuckerton, NJ USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Seducing the French: The Dilemma of Americanization (Paperback)

Richard Kuisel ponders whether the so called "seduction" of the French people my the material based consumer society of America in the years since World War II has caused the French to lose their identity, or "Frenchness." "Curiosity as to why the French once perceived America so harshly and later seemed to succumb to the American way of life," writes Kuisel, " is a natural response for an American historian who has studied and lived in France" The key word here is "seemed." After reading a little over two hundred pages of Professor Kuisel's book the foregone conclusion and obvious answer to the query he posed in the Preface is no, the French did not lose their Frenchness. The French did not "succumb to the American way of life" by drinking Coca-Cola, watching Hollywood films or listening to American Jazz any more than Americans would lose their identity by driving Japanese automobiles or sporting Italian shoes. If this conclusion seems obvious, it is! Mr. Kuisel has written a significant study, and enjoyable read, however, in the process, he has not shattered any existing historical or sociological paradigms. The author has divided his study of the French reaction to modernization and America in the post-war years into three categories: intellectual, economic, and cultural considerations. The strength of Kuisel's book lies in the placing of French sentiment towards the Americans in historical context. Yet this strength contains a dual nature and perhaps conceals a hidden weakness. On the one hand, placing anti-American outlooks within the context of Cold War politics reveals legitimate reasons for French emotions running high. France, as well as West Germany, stood in between to armed camps. If a cataclysmic Third World War was going to eventually come about, France, as was the case in the previous two global conflicts, would once again become a battlefield. This should be a realization for those who have come to believe that the French just hate Americans period. On the other hand, however, a vast majority of anti-Americanism was coming from a logical place: Leftist propaganda via "Le Monde" and other predominantly Leftist publications. Although Kuisel admits that anti-American feelings existed on the Right as well, he fails to provide an adequate comparative political analysis. The result of this omission is, once again, an obvious conclusion for the source of Anti-American sentiment, rather than an astonishing revelation. The French Communists also played an influential role in trying to ban the import of Coca-Cola. The author provides an impressive explanation of the arguments against the importing of the famous American soft drink. French farmers and wine growers as well as other soft drink manufacturers had a legitimate gripe against the possible consequences of an influx of Coca-Cola, yet in the long run, the Communists exhausted their political machinations and American pressure won out. The battle with Coca-Cola was purely political and Kuisel's argument that it represented "a symbolic controversy ... derived from French fear of growing American domination in a political economic and cultural sense" is not well substantiated. In spite of his leaning towards the obvious, Kuisel has provided us with a significant work of post-war French cultural history. Any one who reads this book will come away with a better understanding of the French and why their feelings about Americans have evolved and transformed in the post-war decades. For those that were anticipating an American victory over France in the culture wars, however, may be somewhat disappointed. Cest le guerre!