Émanant d’historien(ne)s du patronat, des salariés, des fonctionnaires et, fait plus singulier, de responsables de l’Institut d’histoire sociale et des instituts fédéraux de la CGT - qui ont favorisé ...l’accès à des archives inédites - les contributions rassemblées ici s’attachent surtout à l’analyse de pratiques syndicales multiples, surtout à l’échelle fédérale, dans la situation d’exception de guerre et d’occupation. Avec in fine un constat, corroborant celui formulé par Ian Kershaw à propos de l’Allemagne : « Les pressions économiques de la guerre » constituent sans doute un déterminant plus probant que les choix idéologiques. Du fait des archives disponibles - qui reflètent pour partie la pression des institutions vichyssoises - le volume privilégie, par nécessité, les fédérations de syndicats « légaux » : les ex-confédérés de la CGT - surtout les « fédéraux » loyaux au régime - ainsi que les syndicats patronaux, minorant de fait les autres échelles d’observation ainsi que les syndicats professionnels, la CFTC et les exunitaires de la CGT. Mais les acteurs de ce syndicalisme « légal » ne pouvant faire abstraction de celui qui l’est moins ou ne l’est pas du tout - sous des formes d’ailleurs complexes de cohabitation - le croisement des regards et des échelles a été poussé au plus loin pour analyser les épreuves exceptionnelles subies par les diverses formes du syndicalisme et, une fois refermée la parenthèse des années noires, les traces parfois durables qu’elles y ont laissées.
...undergirding's Sémelin's thesis is the argument that more Jews survived the Holocaust in France than elsewhere because they were treated, for the most part, like anybody else: with acceptance and ...compassion rather than as threatening outsiders, despite Vichy and the Nazi's attempts to characterize them as a subhuman mass. ...another strength is how clearly this book demonstrates that the Holocaust was far from uniform for Jews in France. ...it was far from uniform from one year to the next, one month to another, in part due to the ever-shifting political and military landscape in France and abroad, and as Vichy and the Nazis implemented more restrictive laws and spoliation measures against Jews. ...Sémelin pays attention to important puzzling details, suggesting avenues for further research in a field that can often feel saturated.
Angelo Tasca, a pivotal figure in 20th-century Italian political history, and indeed European history, is frequently overshadowed by his Fascist opponent Mussolini or his Socialist and Communist ...colleagues (Gramsci and Togliatti). Yet, as Emanuel Rota reveals in this captivating biography, Tasca--also known as Serra, A. Rossi, Andre Leroux, and XX--was in fact a key political player in the first half of the 20th century and an ill-fated representative of the age of political extremes he helped to create. In A Pact with Vichy, readers meet the Italian intellect and politician with fresh eyes as the author demystifies Tasca's seemingly bizarre trajectory from revolutionary Socialist to Communist to supporter of the Vichy regime. Rota demonstrates how Tasca, an indefatigable cultural operator and Socialist militant, tried all his life to maintain his commitment to scientific analysis in the face of the rise of Fascism and Stalinism, but his struggle ended in a personal and political defeat that seemed to contradict all his life when he lent his support to the Vichy government. Through Tasca's complex life, A Pact with Vichy vividly reconstructs and elucidates the even more complex networks and debates that animated the Italian and French Left in the first half of the 20th century. After his expulsion from the Italian Communist Party as a result of his refusal to conform to Stalinism, Tasca reinvented his life in Paris, where he participated in the intense political debates of the 1930s. Rota explores how Tasca's political choices were motivated by the desperate attempt to find an alternative between Nazism and Stalinism, even when this alternative had the ambiguous borders of Vichy's collaborationist regime. A Pact with Vichy uncovers how Tasca's betrayal of his own ideal was tragically the result of his commitment to political realism in the brief age of triumphant Fascism. This riveting, perceptive biography offers readers a privileged window into one of the 20th century's most intriguing yet elusive characters. It is a must-read for history buffs, students, and scholars alike.
"Madeleine’s diary is unique as she wrote it to record as much as she could about everyday life, people and events so she could use these written traces to rekindle memories later for the family from ...whom she had been parted. Many diaries of that era focus on the political situation. Madeleine’s diary does reflect and engage with military and political events. It also provides an unprecedented day-by-day account of the struggle to manage material deprivation, physical hardship, mental exhaustion and depression during the Occupation. The diary is also a record of Madeleine’s determination to achieve her ambition to become a university academic at a time when there was little encouragement for women to prioritise education and career over marriage and motherhood. Her diary is edited and translated here for the first time. Dr Wendy Michallat was born in West Yorkshire. She studied at the Universities of Warwick and Nottingham and lectures in the School of Languages and Cultures at the University of Sheffield. She researches and teaches French cultural history, life-writing and popular culture and has published on diverse subjects including cartoon art, women’s football and first-wave French feminism. Readers may prefer to download and cite from the PDF version of this book. This has a specific DOI and has a fixed structure with page numbers. Guidance on citing from other ebook versions without stable page numbers (Kindle, EPUB etc.) is now usually offered within style guidance (e.g. by the MLA style guide, The Chicago Manual of Style etc.) so please check the information offered on this by the referencing style you use."
This new book by Julian Jackson, a leading historian of twentieth-century France, charts the breathtakingly rapid events that led to the defeat and surrender of one of the key Allied powers, setting ...in motion the traumatic years of the Occupation, the Vichy regime, and the rapid escalation of World War Two.
Antoine Prost's contributions to French history have enabled us to understand the failure of fascism in France and why the Republic survived the humiliation of occupation and collaboration in the ...Second World War. He is the pre-eminent historian of civil society in France. For the first time his seminal articles have been translated into English and collected in this single volume. Beginning with his classic account of war memorials, through his pioneering study of the people of a popular quarter of Paris in 1936, and of the troubled history of commemorating the Algerian war, this book expertly takes us through republican representations of war and peace, urban spaces and social identity, and discourse and social conflict in republican France. Amongst this range of topics, Prost considers the notion of social class and deference, the multiple uses of myth, the secularization of religious imagery, the centrality of primary schools in French political culture, and insults as staples of French political rhetoric. Included here are his famous essays 'Verdun' and 'War Memorials of the Great War', which have been hailed as indispensable additions to the study of European cultural history. Also notable is his fascinating investigation of rites de passage in Orléans, which artfully reveals how complex and semiologically rich rites de passage can be.This book is essential reading for anyone wishing to gain a firm understanding of the history of nineteenth and twentieth century France and of the work of one of the most influential cultural historians of our day.
In Police and Politics in Marseille, 1936-1945 Simon Kitson challenges assumptions about the attitude and behaviour of the French Police and its role with regard to Resistance, Collaboration, the ...Holocaust and the forced labour draft during the Second World War.
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Arnold Douwes led a rescue network in the village of Nieuwlande, in the Dutch province of Drenthe. For fifteen months he bore sole responsibility for Jews and others in hiding, whose numbers ...grew thanks to the rescuers’ philosophy of never refusing genuine fugitives. What makes Douwes unique is that he recorded extensive coded notes about his day-to-day thoughts and activities, burying these in jam-jars in various safe places. Crucially for our understanding of rescue, his chronicle provides in-depth insight into not only the group’s heroic activities, but also the mundane work required to maintain those in hiding.
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