Dear students, 

I will not be back next year to teach you American History, and I'm awfully sorry about that. I truly wish you an excellent summer break and a lot of success in your studies in the coming years. I'd be happy to stay in touch with you. I trust you all have my e-mail adress. 

If you are interested in British politics I would like to reccommend the blog created by a friend and collegue from the University of Paris III : 

British politics P3

Of course you are all more than welcome on my blog on American history and politics; please come and visit and feel free to leave a comment.  

American Studies Year 2

All the best to all of you, 

Aude de Mézerac

Enjoy the atmosphere of the House of Commons

To have a good laugh watch this : Harriet Harman is the deputy leader of the Labour Party and replaced the PM who was away two weeks ago.
She is facing William Hague.
To give you the necessary background : Harriet Harman was seen a couple days earlier visiting her constituency and wearing a stab vest. People mocked her and wondered what it meant about Britain if politicians had to wear such gear to meet with their constituents. 

Enjoy : 

Questions on the movie THE QUEEN

Remember to watch the movie The Queen and answer the following questions for our last class together (seminar 11, on April 16): 

1. How is the royal family depicted in this film? Give examples to make your point. 

2. Analyze the relationship between the Queen and the Prime Minister and its evolution.  

3. What does the film reveal about the contemporary evolutions of Britain? How (by what means) does it do show these changes? 

4. How would you explain the choice of the title for the film? 

SEMINAR 9

Don't forget to bring along Seminar 8 next week: we will be finishing it off before discussing Gordon Brown's first months in office. 

Seminar 9 is a newspaper article but to help you do some research on Gordon Brown here are a few links to interesting articles : 

The Observer offers an article similar to that of The Telegraph that you are studying : insisting on Brown's strategies to get people back to work with the help of the private and voluntary sectors.

 The Spectator, a generally conservative newspaper, offers a longer analysis of the choices faced by Brown : how to deal with Blair as a former PM and with his over-reaching legacy. 

After quite a bit of dithering, Gordon Brown decided to nationalise Northern Rock, the failed bank that almost went under last summer. What does such a decision mean ? Does this mark in any way a return to nationalisation policies? 

A presentation  by the Economist of the next budget : Alistair Darling is possibly over-estimating the future growth of the British economy on which his budget partly rests. 

Gordon Brown suffers from taking the stage after a brilliant actor. 

The Economist on recent electoral polls. 

Tony Blair

You may want to watch Tony Blair's speech to get a sense of the way he speaks :

part 1




part 2



This is an extract from the speech and a short analysis by BBC -News.

Here is a short video summarizing the PM's last speech to the Labour Conference in 2006.

SEMINAR 7 has changed since last year

Please beware : seminar 7 is not the same seminar as last year. So make sure you get it off the Cergy website or off the google group. We will be working on a 1980 speech by Margaret Thatcher. 

Questions for seminar 6 : the wind of change

1. Describe the international, British and South African context in which this speech was given. 
   
2. Who is MacMillan? Is his message consistent with his party's position on the issue? 
3. Whom is Harold MacMillan adressing in this speech and what is he saying to each audience? 
   
4. How is decolonisation described in the speech? Look at the specific words chosen by MacMillan. Explain the rationale for such rhetoric. 
5. What is the Commonwealth? How is it presented in the speech? 
6. Analyse MacMillan's message to South Africa. 

1.