The American Enemy: the history of French anti-Americanism Philippe Roger; translated by Sharon Bowman University of Chicago Press, 536pp, £24.50 ISBN 0226723682

I started reading this book in a cafe in the French Quarter of Montreal, a place where you are likely to encounter a variety of French dialects before you hear a word of English. Montreal is the third-largest French-speaking city in the world (after Paris and Kinshasa), and the only North American metropolis in which French language and culture take precedence over English. It is a place where Homer Simpson speaks Quebecois and where ice-hockey teams visiting from the US are barracked in French. The Montrealais pride themselves on the uniqueness of their francophone culture, and constantly emphasise their separateness from their powerful neighbour to the south. Although English-speaking Americans and Canadians often perceive this as anti-Americanism, the Montrealais maintain that it is no more than a healthy cultural reflex, a product of their city's sophisticated and hybrid political identity.

Montreal is also a place in which one comes across some intriguingly idiosyncratic examples of French. Street signs feature usages so archaic or bizarre as to be almost unrecognisable to French-speaking Europeans. And at the entrances to most shopping malls, shoppers are instructed, "Merci de ne pas flaner," alongside a second notice that reads "No loitering". More than simply a bad translation, this displays a profound misunderstanding of the historical context in which the word "flaner" was invented: it was coined in Paris in the 19th century to describe the pleasurable activity of strolling idly around the passages that were the precursors of the modern mall.

The dangers of clumsy translations and cultural misunderstandings are central to the arguments Philippe Roger makes in his timely and wise book. Roger sets out to show that French anti-Americanism has been less a product of genuine antagonism than the result of a series of misunderstandings. To Roger's dismay, these misunderstandings - sometimes wilful, but often based on genuine confusion - have come to play a central role in French identity.

The American Enemy opens with a description of the various French res-ponses to the discovery and emergence of the New World. The 18th-century naturalist Georges-Louis Buffon, whose work influenced Charles Darwin, insisted upon the physical inferiority of all things American, arguing that the continent's dogs didn't bark, that its birds didn't sing, and that its people were weak and impotent. Buffon's arguments infuriated Thomas Jefferson, who attempted to disprove them by taking a seven-foot-tall carcass of a moose from America to the lobby of his French hotel. Rather than being impressed, Buffon merely remarked on the vulgarity of Jefferson's reliance on empirical evidence.

Buffon was not alone. The discovery of the Americas was clearly traumatic for many Europeans. In 1776, the adoptive Frenchman Cornelius de Pauw declared it to be the most disastrous event in European history. De Pauw argued that everything American was "either degenerate or monstrous": the natives were scared and physically weak, the women did not breed easily, and the intellects of the children had wilted in the harsh climate. He described the philosophy of the new nation as "a Moronic Spirit" and the land itself as an "unfortunate, poisoned place".

Roger traces the course of French anti-Americanism through the 19th and 20th centuries, isolating decisive moments when fear of American power was translated into hatred. One of the turning points was 1898, a year that Roger claims was no less significant for the French than for the Spanish, who lost a bitter war with the United States and, with it, their dominion over Latin America. This was a moment when the world tilted on its axis and the balance of power shifted from the Old World to the New. Ever since, Roger claims, French foreign policy has been obsessed with point-scoring.

All this shows that there is nothing new about contemporary French anti-Americanism, which delights in portraying the US as a nation of lard-arsed trailer trash led by cowboy politicians. As Roger points out, the loudest enemies of the US often have little - or no - direct experience of the country. French anti-Americanism, despite being based on rumour, legend and hearsay, has become a sustaining myth of French identity. Few French intellectuals, Roger argues, have been honest enough to face up to this.

The American Enemy is a shrewd and deft analysis of French cultural history which unmasks a great many absurdities, past and present. What it does not address is the extent to which, in today's world, a large dose of Old World anti-Americanism is a necessary corrective to an economic superpower that seems bent on cultural domination. It is French speak-ers in the New World who are ahead in this respect. Forcing Homer Simpson to speak in Quebecois French - the language of "cheese-eating surrender monkeys" - may not be a giant leap for mankind, but it is certainly a step in the right direction.

Andrew Hussey is the author of The Game of War: the life and death of Guy Debord (Pimlico)

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