Montaigne is one of the most cross-cultural writers ever - both in the assimilation of writings from other cultures into his own work and in the subsequent translations, critical receptions, and creative adaptations of the Essais by other writers throughout the world for the last four hundred years. His work is generally considered as exemplary of the European Renaissance, yet also demonstrates a remarkable relevance to the literary and intellectual activity at the present time. However, whereas there has been an abundance of commentary on Montaigne during the first centuries after his death, much less attention has been paid to his impact on writers of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, particularly those outside France. This study redresses the imbalance. By establishing a stylistic and ideological relationship between Montaigne's work and that of such writers as Emerson, Nietzsche, Pater, Woolf, and Sollers, we not only gain a greater appreciation of the richness of the Essays, but also of some of the roots of modernist and postmodernist writing.

There is a subtle but significant French heritage in North Carolina. The first European explorers to the North Carolina region were, in fact, French (1524). French Huguenots migrated to the state as early as 1690, and many North Carolinians have family names of French origin. Towns such as Bath, Beaufort, New Bern, and La Grange are a testimony to French settlers in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and the city of Fayetteville is named after the Marquis de Lafayette, a French ally during the American Revolution. Beyond names, North Carolina has many other remnants of the French presence sprinkled throughout the state. Built from materials gathered from archives, libraries, interviews, and photographs of locations relevant to the historical presence of the French in North Carolina, this book traces the French heritage in North Carolina from its origins to the present and tells the story of a little-known but important part of North Carolina's cultural history.

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.