Americanism in France: institutions and current trends

Abstract

The study of the Americas, or “Americanism”, appeared as a specific area or specialty in French universities from the middle of the 19th century. It built on deep-going roots about the specificity of the American continent and on the importance of its “discovery” in the intellectual history of Europe, providing a kind of anti-model of what was considered “civilization” and a general interrogation about models of “nature” and “society”. After a slow start, which included however very important...