We'll Always Have Paris: American Tourists in France since 1930 (review)

This engaging, rich socio-cultural history of American tourism in France, covering the period 1930–2002, is a sequel to Levenstein's Seductive Journey (1998), which started with the Jeffersonian era. Displaying the author's talent for vivid, revealing, often funny vignettes and commentary, the study traces the story of tourism's gradual expansion: transformation into a mass phenomenon, increasing inclusion of the under-thirty youth, democratization of practices. The book's broader appeal (and pedagogical usefulness) stems from the glimpses provided by tourism into the evolving love-hate relationship between France and the U.S., the distinction made between the French and France, and the historical construction of stereotypes resulting from socio-economic, political, and cultural forces.

Ample primary sources range from the American and French press and national as well as local archives to personal diaries, memoirs, and interviews. A variety of documents show tourist industry statistics and strategies on both sides of the Atlantic--from American travel agencies to the French Ministry of Tourism anxious to enhance this major source of national revenue. Individual accounts bear witness to reactions toward people, objects, and experiences from the other land. Insights from more theoretically oriented scholarship are also brought into the discussion.

Levenstein proceeds by weaving together several series of data: social groups (defined by age, sex, race, and economic, professional, and geographical categories), recurring themes (expectations, goals, criteria, values), and contextual factors (economy, politics, technology). Tourist social groups include: celebrities, artists, the moneyed upper [End Page 135 class, the middle class, populations from various U.S. regions, African-Americans, women, youth, and students. But professional distinctions, beyond the arts, entertainment, fashion, and the military, are generally limited to white- versus blue-collar workers; likewise, the description of taste (or cultural practices) is mostly reduced to upper- versus lower-brow (180–82); and voices from Smith College or Reid Hall almost exclusively dominate the student category (probably reflecting extant sources).

From leitmotifs Levenstein detects in tourists' (and hosts') praise and complaints, and also from the industry's and governments' efforts to improve the tourist trade, a number of diverse themes emerge: communicative and cultural competence, attitude, social behavior, professional standards, "welcome"; food, hygiene, comfort, leisure and cultural activities; personal freedom, sexuality, self-improvement, pleasure. Levenstein excels at showing the two-way dynamic at work in the interactions occasioned by contacts between the two nations' many subcultures. He is also at his very best when explaining how broad international configurations have historically affected cross-cultural perceptions and the tourist trade. For instance, the presence on the political scene of de Gaulle on one hand, the American GIs on the other; the strange post-war triangle formed by France, the U.S., and Germany; the once lively, now dimming enthusiasm of African-Americans for France; late twentieth-century convergent developments in France and the U.S. leading to a smoother fit between tourists and the host country.

The study unfolds chronologically, which enhances its narrative appeal, although causing some repetition. The treatment of the 1950s seems to receive the lion's share (in Part 2, "War and Revival"), followed by the 1930s (Part 1, "Great Depression Follies"), with the last four decades remaining somewhat less textured yet thoroughly informative (Part 3, "Loving and Hating"). One of the conclusions drawn in Part 3, albeit not entirely new, gives pause: "for most American tourists," France has become "just another stop" in global tourism, while its "distinctively French" aspects are only appreciated among "the East Coast social elite and the upper-middle classes," a situation Levenstein considers a "crucial factor" in the recent "crisis in Franco-American relations" (276). Still, Paris remains a constant attraction for all.

This stimulating book generates more questions, which call for new sets of data. Lately, French cultural policies have increasingly projected an image of France both more modest and quintessentially modern--through architecture, music, display, spectacle, and a renewed film industry. Has this reorientation impacted tourism in some...