A collection of essays by leading scholars and writers, originally composed for a 1985 conference, dealing with the U.S. image from the first vision of the American republic to recent times, when French intellectuals dropped some of their tired stereotypes. A useful, suggestive work that deals with America as a model, even a model for the presidential system of the Fifth Republic, and in several essays makes the rather obvious point that pro- and anti-American feelings can coexist among the same people.