Vichy aux États-Unis : perspectives populaires et savantes

Abstract

RICHARD J. GOLSAN Vichy viewed from the United States: popular and scholarly perspectives The history and memory of the Vichy years, so controversial in France, have stirred considerable interest in the United States, especially since the nineteen eighties. This interest is due in part to an American preoccupation with the Holocaust as well as the memory and consequences of the Second World War. But a number of prejudices against France circulating in the media, as well as a pronounced and perhaps excessive interest in the reactionary and even fascistic elements of French culture, may well distort American perceptions of the Occupation years and of French attitudes since the war. A lack of familiarity with all aspects of recent French history and of French political and cultural institutions contributes to these difficulties.