In recent years, American intellectuals and policy makers have been particularly sensitive to the views of foreign critics of the American scene. In part, the study of foreign images of America is a case of criticism breeding analysis of criticism, but more deep-seated factors are also at work. As early as 1831, Alexis de Tocqueville noted the thin-skinned American response to criticism of any aspect of the national life. No doubt, this sensitivity has been inherited by modern Americans; however, the preoccupation with outsiders' criticism of the United States since 1945 may be explained by more practical considerations. The views of foreign intellectuals about America do, in fact, affect their countries' relations with the United States, most clearly when intellectuals occupy positions of power or when they instruct the minds of those who do. The American government has acknowledged the importance of and has attempted to influence foreign opinion by creating such agencies as the Peace Corps, the United States Information Agency, and the Fulbright program. These institutions operate on the assumption that foreign elites' unfavorable images of the United States are the product of ignorance or incorrect information and that these impressions will be modified if intellectuals are exposed to more--and more accurate--information about the United States.

The study of foreign observers' images of America is one way of testing the claim that ignorance of and hostility toward America are correlated, but this does not exhaust the potential contributions of such studies. It has long been recognized that citizens of one country, even intellectuals, frequently fail to perceive or analyze the commonplace assumptions, values, and habits which are integral to their everyday life. In this respect, the foreign observer, with an outsider's perspective, may serve a useful function. He may help the native to understand what is frequently taken for granted in the home country.

The interest of foreign intellectuals in American culture, however, cannot be explained entirely by the abstract desire to serve the interests of science in revealing the characteristics of the New World experience. It is the product, as well, of a concrete concern for the future of their own countries. Frequently the foreign observer of the United States undertakes his voyage when old institutions are beginning to fail at home. Projecting his hopes and fears for the future onto the United States, his voyage is a way of testing that future. In this sense, observers of America reveal not only the cultural realities of the New World, but their own concerns and values of the moment. To assess the American scene, descriptions of it and the same elements of French life are juxtaposed. The national identity is reaffirmed in contrast to a foreign experience.

For a variety of reasons, French critics over the years have provided some of the most interesting and useful commentary on the United States. Two factors which have stimulated their interest are the large contribution of Frenchmen to the establishment of the United States and their great hopes for the American future. In addition, the existence of a well-established intellectual community in France during the whole of this two-hundred-year period has provided a continuing source of potential travelers. . .