France at the Dawn of the Twenty-First Century/La France a l'aube du XXIe siecle: Trends & Transformations/Tendances Et Mutations - Softcover

Marie-Christine Weidmann Koop, Ph.D. Michigan State University, is a native of France; she serves as Chairperson of the Department of Modern Languages at the University of North Texas. She was the vice-president and president of the AATF (American Association of Teachers of French), co-chair of the AATF Commission on Cultural Competence, and is a member of the editorial board of the French Review and Women in French Studies. She has authored many articles as well as a college textbook and has received several national awards, including the Chevalier de l'ordre des palmes academiques, issued by the French government. Rosale Vermette is Professor Emerita at the University of Indiana-Purdue and is a prolific author and presenter on various facets of French culture, especially contemporary civilization and medieval studies.

This ambitious project involved nineteen authors, each contributing one essay on a variety of topics as outlined in the title of the book: the political, social, and cultural aspects of France at the turn of the century. The last section is devoted to American perceptions of France, a reading that should be complemented by Serge Abrate's two-part study of Franco-American relations in the American Association of Teachers of French National Bulletin 30.2 (November 2004) and 30.3 (January 2005). Abrate, of course, has the advantage of seeing these relations from the post-Iraq War perspective whereas the essays included in Koop's book were composed pre-2000. In a sense, because of the time required to find a publisher and get a manuscript into print, every scholarly book is obsolete when it hits bookshelves. The contents of the book were finalized in 1997 at a time well before the Iraq War, the catastrophic heat wave that caused a scandalous death rate among France's elderly population, allegations of French involvement in the United Nations oil-for-food program, drastic revisions in France's employment and social security programs, and other events that brought about seismic changes in precisely those aspects of French society discussed in this book. Perhaps it is just that fact that will make this book of such interest and value to those future scholars who wish to examine the effects of George W. Bush's presidency and of the 2004 election on America's European policies and relations. It offers a thumbnail sketch of what was just before what is. A striking conclusion one may draw from this study is how similar in nature and in scope are France's situations and problems to those of the U.S.: an aging population in need of an overhaul in health care and social security; the family and how to place gay couples in that context; inequalities among educational degrees, among others. --(Kathryn Wildgen) Rocky Mountain Review