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Saturday, November 13, 2004

Reading List: Our Oldest Enemy

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.

Posted at November 13, 2004 16:52