Book Review

A close-up photograph gives quite a different impression than a picture taken from long distance. Our professional lives for the most part are lived in the realm of the close-up; the highly magnified subfield fills the frame. This volume, by contrast, offers a long-distance view of our subject, one from across the Atlantic, that is in some respects quite different. Standing this far back, for example, both Canada and the United States are in the viewfinder. Current interpretations are placed in deep historiographical perspective.

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Intended as a guidebook for French scholars wishing to orient themselves in the broad area of American history, this volume is in effect a complete update, revision, and retitling of an earlier effort, L'Amérique anglo-saxonne de 1815 à nos jours (Anglo-Saxon America from 1815 to the present), published in 1965. Since then, not only has the historiography of the transatlantic world changed dramatically, but also the field of American history, largely ignored before the 1960s, has established itself in the French academy as a field unto itself. Thus this book fills the need for an up-to-date bibliography, guide to the archival sources, and introduction to the historiography of Canada and the United States (the field cannot be called North American history, because Mexico is not included; the racial fixation of the earlier term Anglo-Saxon slighted the importance of minorities, most notably French-speaking Quebecers).

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