This book enhances our understanding of France and the United States by focusing on their intercultural relations. Baudelaire and Emerson have at the core of their thinking the very notion of how to reconcile individual and collective experience, a theme that is pervasive in French-American relations. A historical perspective to contemporary issues regarding the French-American connection helps us to come to terms with some of the pressing problems currently facing France and the United States and to view some key literary texts in a new light.