Diversity of Worlds: France and the United States Look at Their Common Problems

In the spring of 1956 a group of scholars and leaders of opinion representing the United States and France met at Arden House, New York, to discuss in depth and with candor the interests of their two countries-those that they hold in common and those that appear to bine conflict. Two distinguished publicists, Raymond Aron, outstanding French political writer and regular contributor to Le Figaro of Paris, and August Heckscher, formerly chief editorial writer of the New York Herald Tribune and now Director of the Twentieth Century Fund, have written this important book which grew out of the deliberations at the conference. They have analyzed the differing attitudes of France and America toward such fundamental issues as the nature of the Russian threat and the ways of meeting it; the relations of the West to the other world civilizations and the impact of this changing relationship upon NATO. The divergent approaches of the two great democracies toward capitalism and toward colonialism are explored, as well as the impact of the hydrogen bomb upon the alliance of the Western powers. The book developed from debate and its two authors carry on in their writing the sense of antithesis and contrast, yet with awareness of the common values that unite their countries. Preface by Arnold Wolfers PART ONE BY RAYMOND ARON Prologue: An Old Alliance in a New Setting 1. The Atlantic Alliance and the Soviet Menace 2. The German Problem 3. Defense and the Atom PART TWO BY AUGUST HECKSCHER 4. The Problem of Empire 5. Capitalism, Culture, and Democracy 6. The West and the Non-West CONCLUDING REMARKS by Raymond Aron and August Heckscher