Becoming Americans in Paris: Transatlantic Politics and Culture between the World Wars by Brooke L. Blower (review)

found the contributions by Élisabeth Badinter and Deidre Dawson of particular interest, which sketch a portrait of De Grouchy and compare her philosophy to that of her fellow female philosophers Mary Wollstonecraft and Germaine de Staël in how by embracing a quest for happiness, it restores the importance of affection to Enlightenment moral philosophy. Abstracts follow the essays, as well as a 17-page bibliography offering an extensive scholarly library on De Grouchy (and her husband) and several related subjects (women and the Revolution, women and salons, etc.). An index concludes the book. Because of its metaphysical subject matter, scholars and students of philosophy will be the most likely readers to appreciate and enjoy this book. However, one of the strengths of this book is its uncommon presentation of an annotated modern edition alongside associated scholarship, a combination which, in the opinion of this reader, should appear more frequently in contemporary scholarly publishing. Thus, the essays following De Grouchy’s text in fact make the book accessible to those in areas other than philosophy, such as both French and English eighteenth- and nineteenth-century literature and history, translation studies, cultural studies, and women’s studies. University of North Texas Marijn S. Kaplan BLOWER, BROOKE L. Becoming Americans in Paris: Transatlantic Politics and Culture between the World Wars. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2010. ISBN 978-0-19-973781-9. Pp. 368. $34.95. Blower centers her narrative of American expatriates in Paris on what she calls contested city spaces, the neighborhoods where Americans and Parisians crossed paths. Using this organizational scheme, Blower illuminates the inevitable tensions caused by naïveté and misunderstandings, reflected through the exuberance, misery, and upheavals experienced by both peoples between 1920 and 1940, to convey the evolution of American culture and politics at home and abroad. These contested spaces, increasingly frequented by Americans for business or pleasure—Place de l’Opéra, Champs-Elysées, Montmartre, and Montparnasse—engender the thematic tension connecting the six chapters. Observing the escalating prevalence of English in these spaces, resentful Parisians, suffering from a devalued franc, felt more isolated and tormented by superficial and extravagant elements of American culture. The complaint heard in Montmartre in the 1920s was that the quartier was no longer one “qui pense, mais qui dépense” (68). Blower maintains that in the search for a cosmopolitan Paris, elements of what it meant to be American and French were created or transferred and metamorphosed. She cites controversial American innovations like neon signs, automobiles, and cinema, which emanated ironically from earlier French innovations. Blower combed the Archives de la Préfecture de Police to find intersecting connections and conflicts between both cultures during the 1920–40 period. From these resources, Blower meticulously documents how the concerns for law, order, and justice on both sides of the Atlantic became enmeshed in a net of reactionary and radical cultural and political agendas. The Sacco-Vanzetti trial and execution of two working-class immigrants in Massachusetts and the subsequent Paris riots in 1927 are presented to illustrate both the congruence and dissonance Reviews 769 among groups of Americans and French in their countries and in public spaces in Paris. Likewise, the arrival of the American Legion for a parade down the ChampsElys ées three weeks after the Sacco-Vanzetti riots evoked some of the same polemics and fears, although Blower adeptly explains why the outcome was much calmer. Inserted between these two chapters is one devoted to the reactionary Prefect of Police Jean Chiappe, whose polarizing tenure (1927–34) provoked dissention between the left and the right and paved the path for the contentious decades leading to and following World War II. Cultural and political transnational history comes alive through Blower’s engaging presentation of facts and analysis, accompanied by extensive notes and a comprehensive bibliography. Her rhetorical strategy of opposing arguments or viewpoints, drawn from primary and secondary sources, renders particularly cogent her final assessments, offered as section and chapter summaries. Blower, whose flowing prose is replete with precise, varied vocabulary and syntax, alternates concrete examples, regularly drawn from the writings of well-known personalities , with overarching paradigms of public sentiments and events. Although sometimes authenticating the romantic images of...