Seducing the French

The Dilemma of Americanization
1. Auflage 1997
ISBN: 978-0-520-20698-4
Verlag: University of California Press

Buch, Englisch, 293 Seiten, Trade Paperback, Format (B × H): 153 mm x 225 mm, Gewicht: 435 g

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.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Kuisel, Richard F.

Fachgebiete

• Interdisziplinäres Wissenschaften Wissenschaft und Gesellschaft | Kulturwissenschaften Kulturwissenschaften
• Geisteswissenschaften Theater- und Filmwissenschaft | Andere Darstellende Künste Theaterwissenschaft Theatersoziologie, Theaterpsychologie
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Geschichte einzelner Länder Europäische Länder
• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Spezielle Soziologie Kultursoziologie
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Europäische Geschichte
• Sozialwissenschaften Medien- und Kommunikationswissenschaften Kommunikationswissenschaften Interkulturelle Kommunikation & Interaktion

Inhaltsverzeichnis

PREFACE 1
Anti-Americanism and National Identity 2
The New American Hegemony The French and the Cold War 3
Yankee Go Home The Left, Coca-Cola, and the Cold War 4
The Missionaries of the Marshall Plan 5
The American Temptation The Coming of Consumer Society 6
The Gaullist Exorcism Anti Americanism Encore 7
The American ChallengeDollars and Multinationals 8
Detente Debating America in the 1960s 9
Vive 1'Amerique An Epilogue from 1970 to Euro Disneyland 10
Reflections The French Face Americanization NOTES SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY INDEX

Über Autor(innen)

Richard F. Kuisel is Professor of History at the State University of New York, Stonybrook and the author of Capitalism and the State in Modern France (1981).