With Americans of Past and Present Days

With Americans of Past and Present Days is a collection of seven essays written by Jean Jules Jusserand and first published in 1916.

Jean Jules was a long-serving French Ambassador to the United States and this work details French relations with the United States throughout its history. These essays won the first Pulitzer Prize for History, in 1917.

The book offers an overview of the history of the United States, the history of France and in general of the politics of the 18th or 19th centuries. They are written in the context of the First World War and highlight and explore the friendly relationship between the two countries.

The first and longest essay, titled Rochambeau and the French in America, chronicles the relationship between Rochambeau and Washington and how the French viewed the Americans and English during the Revolutionary War. It explains why France supported the United States in the war.

It is not a standard treatise on history, in the sense that it does not seek the rigor and objectivity of a historical text. The main motivation is to promote the strength of the relationship between the two countries. This is why some parts of the story are not mentioned.

"Little more than a century ago the hill on which rises the Capitol of the federal city and the ground around it were covered with woods and underbrush; a few scattered farms had been built here and there, with one or two exceptions mere wooden structures whose low roofs scarcely emerged from their leafy surroundings."