Paris in the Americas: Yesterday and Today

For many people, imagining a world without Paris is unfathomable. “Paris in the Americas: Yesterday and Today”, edited by Carole Salmon, explores Paris’s influence on the inhabitants of the Americas, both historically and in modern times. This thoughtfully compiled volume presents a rich diversity of ideas and perspectives. Focusing on cultural productions (section 1) and urban connections (section 2), each of the eleven essays reveals a particular and unique view of Paris. This book will appeal to scholars whose research and approaches range from cultural studies to history to anthropology to sociolinguistics. It provides an original, fascinating, and important contribution to the multi-faceted study of Paris.

Dr. Stacey Katz Bourns

Professor, Department of Cultures, Societies and Global Studies

Director, World Languages Center

College of Social Sciences and Humanities

Northeastern University

Carole Salmon’s multi-author edited volume, “Paris in the Americas: Yesterday and Today,” offers an interdisciplinary approach to the influences and fascination that, throughout the centuries, the city and its identity possess in the Americas. Drawing on a wide range of critical discourses, Salmon’s vision and implementation of this work gives the reader unprecedented access to the key influences that the City of Lights has brought to the American continent. The eleven essays that compose this volume are organized in two main parts, consisting of cultural productions (6 essays) and urban connections (5 essays), covering a wide range of topics: the Parisian vaudeville, Existentialism and its influence on American fashion, the influence of Jackie Kennedy as a bridge between the American middle class and French culture, representations of Paris in film and literature as well as Paris’s importance in the urban planning of cities as far away from each other as New York City, Rio de Janeiro or Mexico City. This volume is an essential reading for anyone interested in the study of French influence and the Parisian imaginary from one end to the other of the Americas.

Dr. Maria R. Matz

Chair, Department of World Languages and Cultures

University of Massachusetts Lowell