This multi-disciplinary book explores the limits, but also the successes, of one of the world’s oldest democracies. It gives its full place to studying the workings of the American political system, the role of immigrants and ethnoracal minorities, religious issues and the globalisation of the economy. It calls into question old stereotypes about American hyperpower, excessive individualism, ultraliberalism and divisive communitarianisms. The ‘American dream’ still exists. But it is not only the promise of employment or social promotion for these thousands of immigrants who land in the US every day. It is also a quest for identity and, in this sense, inseparable from well-thought-out multiculturalism, some innovative forms of positive discrimination and exuberant bureaucrosity that would be wrong to overestimate. The often announced decline in America is slow, to say the least, to manifest itself. The economy is dynamic, and the quality of universities attracts elites from all over the world, culture is always attractive, not only because of its films or music, but because literature is, as we know, rich. This book, devoted to the political, diplomatic, economic, social, cultural and artistic aspects of the United States, finally treats the United States as a continent to rediscover. Collaborated in this work: Agnès Antoine, Hélène Baudchon, Yves Boquet, Laurent Bouvet, Gwénaële Calvès, Nathalie Caron, Marc Chénetier, Claude Cohen-Safir, Catherine Collomp, Charles-Philippe David, Frederick Douzet, Andrew Eastman, Annick Foucrier, Divina Frau-Meigs, Camille Froidevaux-Metterie, Jean-Paul Gabilliet, Pierre Hassner, Nancy Honicker, Romain Huret, Denis Lacorne, Philippe Lauvaux, Emmanuelle Le Texier, Pierre Melandri, Vincent Michelot, Pap Ndiaye, Joyce Carol Oates, Carlos- Miguel Pimentel, Catherine Pouzoulet, Isabelle Rose, Phyllis Rose, Daniel Sabbagh, Paul Schor, Pierre Sicard, François Vergniolle de Chantal.