I usually bring home some books for myself whenever I travel. Sure, I can order books from anywhere in any language these days, but nothing quite replaces the experience of browsing in a bookstore, picking up books, reading the backs, flipping through a few pages; moving from section to section, seeing which books the employees have featured at the end of aisles or in promotional stacks on tables.
I didn’t have a lot of room in my luggage this time, so I restricted myself to three slim paperbacks. (Of course, there were also three Astérix books for Simon, and two volumes of manga in French translation that I assigned Leo to select for his own edification as he learns).
One of these books is a concise history of the United States. Regardez, bearing in mind that I chose it without any foreknowledge of the author or the series, solely based on it being concise.
I think it’s interesting to see oneself from another perspective or to see something that you are used to reading from one point of view, in another point of view.
I just started it this morning. It began with an interesting reflection on how the “young” United States actually does have a history, and points out that the United States became independent around the same time that France began transitioning from monarchy to republic. It also noted the long pre-independence history of the colonies, something that I think even we don’t often appreciate: that 1607–1776 is about as lengthy as 1776–1945.
Another reflection was on the original motto E pluribus unum. Correctly noting that the reference was originally to multiple colonies forming one nation, the author re-interpreted it—as many have—as the statement of an ideal that we are continually trying to move towards, the generation of unity from a rich diversity of different kinds of people. He describes this as an ongoing, dynamic effort that is always under tension, renewed in every generation of Americans, and contrasts it with the European Union’s motto In varietata concordia (united in diversity) which he describes as “static.”
But the bit that really made me put down my book and laugh came in the opening pages of the first chapter, where the Spanish arrive in the Americas. Let me translate the bit that cracked me up.
Like the Europeans, the Amerindians struggled to comprehend lands far removed from their coasts. Upon the arrival of the Spanish, they did not know whom they were dealing with. They were astonished by…
…here is where, in my memory, every U.S. history I ever read would mentions the big ships, or the armor and weapons, or possibly the strange physical appearance of the newcomers.
What does this French author identify as the astonishing thing the Spanish brought?
…the red wines that the Europeans drank and which they associated with blood.
Now, I’m not saying this is just projection on the part of the French author. I know there are primary sources, such as ships’ logs and diaries, in which the arriving Europeans recorded their perceptions of the people they encountered, including some reactions to European materials. Maybe there is a mention of red wine in some of these!
But I must say I have never read a history in English which included this detail.
The text doesn’t make it clear whether he’s remarking on the Amerindians associating the wine with blood or on the Spanish associating the wine with blood (which they most certainly did). In any case, I thought this was a very French choice of detail.
And maybe the detail I was conditioned to expect, that of being astonished by weapons, is, well, a very American one.
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