Contenu du sommaire : Les États-Unis et l'Europe depuis 1945

Ernest Mercier – Philip Cortney, two supporters of French Business interests and influence in the United States during the Post WWII DecadeThis paper aims to highlight the key role played by the French industrialist Ernest Mercier (1878-1955) in the affirmation of French interests in the United States, from the Rye Conference, in the fall of 1944, to the Tokyo Congress of the International Chamber of Commerce – Chambre de Commerce internationale (ICC-CCI), in 1955. Mercier was delegated by the new Gouvernement provisoire de la République française to participate in the Rye Businessmen's Conference, where he represented and promoted both the interests of the restored French Republic and those of French businessmen. In a second part, the article looks back at the long friendship and relations between Ernest Mercier and Philippe Cotnareanu. The latter, an influential businessman, had taken on the name Philip Cortney (1895-1971) and obtained American citizenship. He strove to implement soft power tools in favor of France in the USA and intervened, along with Ernest Mercier, in the governing bodies of the ICC-CCI.

Interactions and transatlantic circulations in the automobile sector. The relations between FIAT and the United States from the Marshall Plan to the Economic Boom. This article analyzes the economic, commercial and technological relations in the automotive sector between the Italian company FIAT and the United States, starting from the second Post-war period, focusing in particular on the impact and the effects of the Marshall Plan. This research, which is based on unpublished primary sources, aims to examine the typology of these bilateral relations, as well as the influences, vectors and possible transfers in a strategic sector for the reconstruction of the Italian industry. It examines the role played by private industrial and financial actors as well as by public actors and diplomats in these processes of exchange and observes the difficulties and limits to their actions in the context of the Cold War.

US Art Philanthropists After 1945. Actors or Victims of the « Triumph of American Art » ?
This article deals with the way North American philanthropic networks used the arts to influence US foreign policy and to inspire a love of their country. An influential historiographical tradition suggests that US philanthropists, with the Rockefellers at the forefront, were the main actors in the « triumph of American art » after 1945, and that they were motivated by anticommunism in the Cold War. However, American patrons only engaged in artistic propaganda in 1952. This article examines the political and social reasons of this late investment through the lens of a transnational approach. It shows that anticommunism was not the main reason of US patrons' interest for US artistic propaganda. As for the effects of these politics, they were felt even later, and it is not sure that the « American avant-garde » benefited from them before the Sixties.

Clemens Heller and transatlantic exchanges in social sciences and research institutions
Clemens Heller, a historian born in Vienna in 1917 who took refuge in the US because of the rise of Nazism, was one of the major actors of transatlantic scholarly exchanges from 1946 to 1992. First, he was the main creator of what is today the Salzburg Global Seminar. Then, moving to Paris, he became a cornerstone of intellectual exchanges of an unprecedented intensity not only between Europe and America, but also between East and West. He played a key role in three French institutions : The Sixth Section of the École pratique des hautes études (later the EHESS), the foundation Maison des Sciences de l'Homme and the Maison Suger. His trajectory shows how far the building of international networks can drive innovation in the social sciences and in the organization of institutions of higher education.

The Mont Pelerin Society between Europe and the United States during the 1970s
The Society of Mont Pelerin is a learned society, created on the initiative of the Austrian economist Friedrich Von Hayek in Switzerland, just after the Second World War, and it aims at spreading neoliberal thought. It is an illustrative example of the interaction between academics and policy makers in the economic field and it was particularly active in the 1970s. Indeed, several members of Mont Pelerin are part of the Nixon administration, and some of them play the role of external advisers. Through the correspondence of Gottfried Haberler and Milton Friedman with Nixon's close advisors on economic and financial issues, this article evaluates the influence of the ideas disseminated by the Mont Pelerin.

Margaret Thatcher's American Dream : origins and development
This paper describes the intellectual development of « Thatcherism » and explains the contribution of a network of transatlantic think-tanks and experts to its origins in the 1970s, and to the transformation of the Mrs Thatcher's reforming convictions into an ‘ism' when in power. Central to this evolution was a constant supply of free-market policy ideas and practices from the US. Mrs Thatcher always acknowledged this inspiration – personified by Ronald Reagan – on her many triumphal visits there. While academics and politicians have ceaselessly debated the real impact of the Mrs Thatcher's ‘revolution', almost none have calculated this Americanising dimension of her effort. In reality it is a testimony to the enduring force of example, or ‘soft power', of certain American think-tanks, foundations and political practices in conservative circles in Britain.

A decade of « Caux Round Table » : The Transnational Employer's Network of Moral Rearmament between Neoliberalism and Corporate Ethics (1986-1996)Our contribution aims to shed light on the first decade of an American-European-Japanese club of economic leaders known as the Caux Round Table (CRT). Reunited annually in Switzerland on the heights of Montreux in the Caux-Palace since 1986, it brought together influential businessmen at the initiative of Frederik Jacques Philips, Olivier Giscard d'Estaing and Ryuzaburo Kaku. We argue that CRT's existence is rooted in the Moral Rearmament movement and its tradition of industrial conferences. Secondly, this article describes the profiles of CRT members, mostly CEOs of multinationals of the secondary sector, who were active in Christian circles. A third point is made : the contribution analyses the translation of CRT's discourse into an ethical business guide in 1994. We will then link the definition of « moral capitalism » advocated by the CRT to the idea of Alfred Marshall's economic chivalry. Finally, the importance of considering religious sociability in transnational elite networks will be underlined in order to understand the participants and their paradoxical motives in all their complexity but also the origin, nature and extent of their collaboration.