In 1981, French documentarian Jean-Luc Léon began filming a Soviet Jewish family on the eve of its emigration to the United States, following the three Lapirovs—father, mother and son—from Moscow to Los Angeles over the course of several years. The resulting film is often as comic as it is moving in its quiet observation of the family, as culture shock gives way to assimilation. Despite their travails, the Lapirovs display remarkable aplomb, landing on their feet and seemingly close to the American dream. A return trip to the Soviet Union provides both the film’s frame and an occasion to reflect on what has been gained, and lost, by emigration.

The French perspective on the ongoing love/hate relationship between the U.S. and France is the subject of this lively whirlwind tour of American influence on France in the second half of the twentieth century. Bob Swaim compiles compelling archival and eyewitness evidence of the pervasive Americanization of almost every aspect of postwar France – from cinema to music to agriculture to domestic architecture – thus providing an insightful context for both the gradual shift from the pro-American sentiments just after World War II to the vociferous anti-American protests that grew more pointed in the following decades.