History 541: France Since 1815 4th Essay Assignment S2002 Prof. J. Popkin
Write a 3-4 pp (750-1000 wd) essay on one of the following topics. Your material will be drawn primarily from the Kuisel book; you may use other sources (such as Cogan and the textbook) if they are relevant.
(1) Which individuals and groups in France have been most vocal in voicing anti-American sentiments, and why? Do these groups make up a cohesive “anti-American alliance,” or have they been at odds with each other in significant ways?
(2) Which has been more important in spreading American culture in France: American pressure or French desire to enjoy some aspects of the “American way of life”? Be sure to examine the evidence on both sides of the question.
What I’m looking for on this assignment: This assignment asks you to write an argumentative essay. This doesn’t mean that you need to write in an angry or argumentative tone. It means that your essay needs to take a stand or put forward a thesis about an issue, and back up or justify your thesis with evidence from the reading. Unlike the book-review essay we did earlier in the semester, this one requires you to do something more than just summarize what the author of the book we’re reading has said. You will need to understand the book, but you will also need to use the information in the book to answer a question that goes beyond what the author has written.
An argumentative essay should start with a statement of your thesis or argument. For example, if you choose question 2, you would begin by writing something like: “The French have only themselves to blame if their children now prefer Coca-Cola to Chateau-Lafite.” The rest of your introductory paragraph should then expand on your thesis statement and briefly indicate how you are going to support it. In this case, you might continue by saying “American products became popular in France because they were healthier, cheaper, and easier to use than the outdated and overpriced alternatives French manufacturers offered.” Your introductory paragraph might also refer to objections to your argument that you are going to take up later in the paper: “The evidence also shows that claims that the US government and American industries pressured or seduced the French into buying our products are nothing but Communist propaganda.”
What next? You should write 3 or 4 paragraphs that expand on or substantiate the claims in your introductory paragraph. In this case, you could use several different American cultural products—Coca-Cola, movies, baseball caps—as examples, and show in some detail how each one came to be popular in France. This would be the positive side of your argument: presenting the case for your thesis. Then you might move to what we could call the rebuttal phase, where you take a paragraph or two to consider objections to your thesis. Did the US government go too far in trying to open France up to American movies? Show why you don’t think so. An argumentative essay that faces up to apparently contradictory evidence honestly is more persuasive than one that just sweeps inconvenient objections under the rug.
Finally, your paper should have a conclusion. The conclusion should do two things: it should summarize your argument—not repeat it, but show how the evidence you have introduced has supported it—and it should underline the general significance of that argument. In this case, you would refer to your examples to show that the French just loved American goods, and for very good reasons. Then you would remind the reader that the claim that the US put pressure on France has been shown to be nothing more than a myth. The “general significance” statement would then be a final sentence or two indicating what we can conclude from this. An appropriate conclusion to the argument I’ve been making might be, “After World War II, the French were fortunate to have been able to enjoy American goods that did so much to improve their standard of living. [Restatement of your argument] Their example shows that progress is achieved by accepting the hegemony of larger and more powerful allies. [general significance statement, going one step beyond what’s been said earlier in the paper]
In this case, I have given you questions which can be answered in several different ways. I am not looking for one particular answer to them. Instead, I want to see whether you can read Seducing the French carefully, and construct a persuasive argument from the evidence given in the book. I hope your argument will be more persuasive than the one I have given as an example! As always, I will be grading papers for clear and accurate writing as well as for content.
La bonne nouvelle (the good news): This is the last writing assignment for the semester (other than the final exam)!