“Les lieux de mémoire” and Pierre Nora’s writing of French national history

Abstract

After World War II, the orientation toward economic and social history of France’s new history weakened the traditional national history narrative. A series of major social and political changes in French society of the 1970s reduced consciousness of the nation-state, and individualized historical memory and counter-memories and identities became increasingly prominent as the historical memory of the Lavissian nation-state fragmented. It was in this context that les lieux de mémoire emerged; Pierre Nora seeks to pursue a national consciousness without nationalism by recalling the realms of memory. Although inspired by Ernest Lavisse’s L’histoire de France, this study, more inclusive than Lavisse’s, is a reflective “second-degree history” that attempts to seek identity in the “inheritance” of national memory following the decay of nationalist ideology. The proposed lieux de mémoire implies a profound change in the past, present and future relationships of French national history, a change that undermines historical continuity. This can be regarded as a new marker for a historical system: “presentism.”