Over at Amazon.com, a few Francophiles are writing customer reviews that savage Our Oldest Enemy: A History of America’s Disastrous Relationship with France. “Imbecile bilge,” says one. “A piece of trash,” says another. A third says my co-author and I “wish to provide comfort reading to all the French-bashing neocons.”

Oh dear!

Considering the sources, however, some of these criticisms actually read like inadvertent endorsements. In other words, people who are really upset that President Bush isn’t submitting U.S. foreign policy to a “global test” graded by Jacques Chirac become absolutely hysterical when someone suggests that France isn’t a tried-and-true friend of America. I can live with that. Anyway, most of the reviews of Our Oldest Enemy at Amazon are actually rather positive–and I’m grateful to those who have posted them.