John Barzman, Dockers, métallos, ménagères: Mouvements sociaux et cultures militantes au Havre (1912–1923). Le Havre: Publications de l'Université de Rouen, 1997. 423 pp. 170 FF.

Abstract

John Barzman's study of labor and politics in the Norman port of Le Havre is the latest in a long line of monographs on workers in a single city. Based on extensive work in local, departmental, and national archives, this highly detailed account of the composition of working-class neighborhoods, the local trade union movement, labor politics, community protest, and strikes is surely the leading source for workers and the labor movement in Le Havre for its period. Though its title only promises a study of dockers, metal workers, and Le Havre's large number of women working under irregular employment conditions, most other industrial and occupational groups of both sexes are discussed at length. Barzman is especially interested in the roots of the changed postwar configuration of French labor after World War One. Accordingly, he chooses the time frame for his study around the dates of what he views as a “cycle of radicalization” that ran from 1912 to 1923, rather than the standard cutoff date of 1914.