- Miller, John J. and Mark Molesky. Our Oldest Enemy. New
York: Doubleday, 2004. ISBN 0-385-51219-8.
- In this history of relations between the America and
France over three centuries—starting in 1704, well before the U.S.
existed, the authors argue that the common perception of sympathy and
shared interest between the “two great republics” from Lafayette to
“Lafayette, we are here” and beyond is not borne out by the facts,
that the recent tension between the U.S. and France over Iraq is
consistent with centuries of French scheming in quest of its own, now
forfeit, status as a great power. Starting with French-incited and
led Indian raids on British settlements in the 18th century, through
the undeclared naval war of 1798–1800, Napoleon's plans to invade New
Orleans, Napoleon III's adventures in Mexico, Clemenceau's subverting
Wilson's peace plans after being rescued by U.S. troops in World War
I, Eisenhower's having to fight his way through Vichy French troops
in North Africa in order to get to the Germans, Stalinst
intellectuals in the Cold War, Suez, de Gaulle's pulling out of NATO,
Chirac's long-term relationship with his “personal friend” Saddam
Hussein, through recent perfidy at the U.N., the case is made that,
with rare exceptions, France has been the most consistent opponent of
the U.S. over all of their shared history. The authors don't hold
France and the French in very high esteem, and there are numerous
zingers and turns of phrase such
as “Time and again in the last two centuries, France has refused to
come to grips with its diminished status as a country whose greatest
general was a foreigner, whose greatest warrior was a teenage girl,
and whose last great military victory came on the plains of Wagram in
1809” (p. 10). The account of Vichy in chapter 9 is rather
sketchy and one-dimensional; readers interested in that particular
shameful chapter in French history will find more details in Robert
Paxton's
Vichy France and
Marc Ferro's biography,
Pétain or the eponymous
movie
made from it.
November 2004 