Our Oldest Enemy: A History of America's Disastrous Relationship with France (Hardcover)

~ (Author), Mark Molesky (Author) "THE PEOPLE OF Deerfield, Massachusetts, didn't know what danger lurked just outside their little village before dawn on February 29, 1704..." (more)
Key Phrases: foreign subversive, oldest enemy, United States, New York, New Orleans (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

National Review reporter Miller (The Unmaking of Americans) and Harvard lecturer Molesky focus quite single-mindedly on destroying what they say is the "myth" of the historical friendship between the United States and France. In doing so, they give short shrift to a few vital facts: for instance, while focusing on the French and Indian massacre of British colonists at Deerfield, Mass., in 1704, they overlook the importance of the French fleet in George Washington's great victory at Yorktown. Miller and Molesky also dismiss French policy as having a cynical underside of national self-interest, willfully overlooking the fact that all governments act out of self-interest. Thus, they call French trade barriers during the Cold War ingratitude for American aid in WWII. They accuse the French, who dare to look down on American culture, of their own "sordid cultural exports," such as the avant-garde, with its strain of nihilism. And, as the authors see it, the French, with the debacle at Dien Bien Phu, are responsible for America's quagmire in Vietnam. As one might guess, driving this revisionism is France's refusal to support the United States in its late invasion of Iraq The authors' ire, and their carefully selected and unnuanced slices of history, will convince only the already converted.
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From Booklist

Lafayette, the Statue of Liberty, D-Day-- such symbolic shorthand for a historical alliance between France and America crumbles in the caustic viewpoint expressed by this historical review of their relationship. Miller, of the conservative National Review,^B and Molesky, a Harvard history lecturer, argue that animosity rather than amity has been the two countries' normal state of affairs, extending from the French and Indian War to the post-World War II pattern of frequent French diplomatic opposition to American foreign policy. The authors reflect on the sources of French anti-Americanism, maintaining it is, in part, because of France's resentment of its own decline as a great power and its cultural contempt for America as crass and materialistic. What may seem like the long-gone past, such as Napoleon III's pro-South policy in the Civil War, is presented as a seamless continuum to the present, representing the French proclivity for hampering the American "hyperpower," as one foreign minister recently called the U.S. Gratifying to a nationalist sensibility, Miller and Molesky's editorialized jaunt through history is fluid and opinionated. Gilbert Taylor
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: Doubleday (October 5, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0385512198
• ISBN-13: 978-0385512190
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.5 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (96 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #660,947 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

28 of 37 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Real French Revolutionary Slogan: Travail, Famille, Patrie!!, September 30, 2005

By	Lucius Cornelius Sulla's March On Rome "Hades... (Then a Demon Came to Him) - See all my reviews

Next is French disloyalty during the War of Independence. France merely "helped" America because of tactical ease to stymie England's expansion and prevent British concessions after Saratoga, but France menacingly plotted to not comply with or disobey American strategy against the English in some of the most decisive battles!!!! This ruse was schemed by Vergennes, Foreign Affairs Minister, when he drafted two treaties with Benjamin Franklin to solidify the alliance. The first palpable "assistance" came from stuffy D'Estaing (inexperienced in navy matters) who arrived stalled, dearly permitting the English to consolidate at New York in July 1778. Henceforth, D'Estaing mismanaged an opportunity to rout the English by placing his heaviest guns on Sandy Hook--island with view of NY harbor where English ships consolidated--the English took it for themselves. D'Estaing followed with other tactical misdeeds at Newport, St. Lucia, and Savannah. Another infamous citation was naval officer Landais who during John Paul Jones' battle with the Serapis fired on Jones' ship, almost costing him victory.

77 of 105 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars What We Need to Know About France, October 29, 2004

By	Pete (Birmingham, MI) - See all my reviews

Students of diplomatic history will find familiar material here. Their previous reading will have included scattered accounts of French perfidy in the New World and placed them on their guard against the myth of untarnished Franco-American amity. For the non-specialist, however, Miller and Molesky have performed an invaluable service by marshalling the salient facts into one book - and a most engaging and well-written one at that. Their demolition of the aforementioned myth is complete (but restrained) as they guide us through 300 years of French misadventures with the United States.

To be sure, the familiar facts of Franco-American friendship and assistance are recounted and form the background of the narrative. As these are well known they are explored in detail only when necessary (and perhaps when charity warrants that the authors not make France look as bad as it might deserve). The book, naturally, accentuates the negative but is hardly a litany of complaints. Facts are facts - and any student of Franco-American relations should understand how American friendships and alliances with France have been colored by deception, rivalry, and even open (though undeclared) war on the part of the French. The book's thesis may seem provocative - but by the time the narrative reaches the First World War most readers should be thoroughly convinced of its truth. Diplomatic history may seem like a musty and pedantic business to most Americans but Miller and Molesky's well-paced argument and enlightening revelations successfully elicit the dialectical agility required to think of France as (often simultaneously) ally and enemy.

Not, of course, an enemy of the Nazi or Soviet sort, but a persistent one nonetheless. Beginning with French massacres of New England colonists in the early 18th Century, the authors show us the transformation of colonial particularism into a more unified American identity as the several colonies propose a system of united defense against the French military encroachments that would come to be known as the French and Indian War of 1754. French aid during the Revolutionary War is accurately viewed in the light of balance-of-power struggles and France's wish to weaken its traditional rival Great Britain. The story of French assistance at Yorktown (which is not omitted, as the Publisher's Weekly reviewer mistakenly claims) is supplemented by an account of France's arrogant and often incompetent military "support" prior to and following that battle - an account that would strike many Americans as ridiculously comical if it didn't at the same time demonstrate how French hauteur and stupidity nearly aborted the nascent American republic in its struggle with Britain.

America's first naval victory, against France in the Quasi War of 1798-1800, is highlighted. Napoleon's sale of the Louisiana Territory to the United States is placed in its proper context and his chicanery in getting America to declare war on Britain (rather than France) in 1812 is detailed. Napoleon III's designs on weakening the US by supporting the South in the Civil War, his Mexican adventure, and his follies in general are well-handled by the authors. American military aid to France in the First and Second World Wars is juxtaposed against French's self-defeating nationalist intransigence during and after these conflicts. The authors take note of Operation Torch, the Allied invasion of North Africa during which French Vichy troops mercilessly attacked the Americans who were coming to liberate them. (Tip of the hat to the authors: I have not noticed an account of this episode in any of the other major histories of Franco-American relations.)

Vietnam, the Cold War (during the latter stages of which France proved to be a considerable help to the US - a fact which has not escaped the authors), and Iraq - all these conflicts are dealt with expertly by Miller and Molesky. Two things need to be added, however. When diplomatic historians come to write a full account of the origins of the war in Iraq they will note the diplomatic struggle that took place between the United States and France before George W. Bush even came to office. France's open non-compliance with the system of U.N.-imposed sanctions (something it was joined in by Russia and China) will be seen as one of the causes of American and British intervention. By subverting the diplomatically achieved system of sanctions France narrowed American options and rendered a more forceful treatment of Saddam Hussein likely. Finally, the "multi-polar world" favored by France today rests on the kind of thinking behind the balance-of-power system of "Old Europe" - a system more conducive to conflict and instability than the benign hegemony exercised by the United States today. Some may question whether this hegemony is currently "benign". But one thing is certain. As long as the United States holds such power in the world France cannot attain what its national pride most desires: a hegemony, or partial hegemony of its own.

An excellent read.

27 of 36 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Know what the book is and isn't about, December 20, 2004

By	Edmund Weil - See all my reviews

The reviews of this book swing between such extremes that I decided to do a little research of my own to see just what is going on here.

The Library Journal charged that Miller and Molesky ignore the academic studies published by Henry Blumenthal and Jean-Baptiste Duroselle. So I looked up Blumenthal's "A Reappraisal of Franco-American Relations, 1830-1871" and found the following: "Contrary to popular notions, the relations between the two countries were not friendly. Usual references to the historic Franco-American friendship from the times of Lafayette to the present conveniently ignore crucial issues and petty incidents which led to a growing estrangement between Paris and Washington in the last century . . . Franco-American alienation in the mid-nineteenth century gradually developed and deepened as the result of a multitude of conflicting policies and viewpoints." And in his "France and the United States: Their Diplomatic Relations, 1789-1914" Blumenthal notes that "the celebrated friendship between France and the United States has been a historical myth." This is precisely Miller and Molesky's thesis. So, far from running afoul of Blumenthal's seminal works, Miller and Molesky are precisely on the same page. Duroselle's "France and the United States: From the Beginnings to the Present", while noting many of the "crucial issues and petty incidents" mentioned by Blumenthal, tends to whitewash the actions and motivations of French statesmen when discussing their questionable antagonisms to the US. Duroselle's book is also a summary history and typically glosses over Franco-American frictions rather than exploring them in detail. Thus, there was probably a good reason for Miller and Molesky to ignore a book that wasn't exactly impartial or exhaustive.

The problem, it seems to me, is that reviewers who are hostile to this book totally misunderstand what the book tries to (and does) achieve. The book is NOT a complete history of Franco-American relations and has no pretensions to historical exhaustiveness. Nor is it an attack on France by a couple of angry partisans. What it IS, is an exposure of the MYTH that France and the United States were essentially allies for 200 years before George Bush stumbled into town and shot up the Baghdad corral. This "myth" is incredibly easy to refute and Miller and Molesky marshal an impressive body of evidence (spanning 300 years) to do just that. But they have by no means tried to prove that France has NEVER been our ally (or that it can't be again). What they have given us is the antagonistic side of Franco-American history - a side that is surprising, enlightening, sometimes shocking, and quite relevant to today's frictions between France and the United States. We should consider ourselves fortunate that France's worst intentions with regard to the US were never realized - otherwise we might think of it today as a positively hostile nation rather than simply an occasional thorn in our side.

If you're looking for a complete introduction to the history of Franco-American relations I would recommend that you do the following: read Duroselle's "France and the United States" and then read Miller and Molesky's "Our Oldest Enemy" as a corrective to Duroselle's whitewashing of French antagonism and perfidy. Or read "Our Oldest Enemy" first. It's a gripping and eye-opening reassessment of "our oldest ally".