War In France Research Articles

The Cold-War Christian Humanism of François Mauriac

One would be hard-pressed to find an era more inhospitable to either Christianity or humanism than that of the nascent Cold War in France, which severely tested affirmations of both perspectives. First, and doubtless most formidable, was the challenge of history. The devastating carnage of World War II and the Nazi genocide was stamped indelibly on the minds of all who had lived through the cataclysm. Humans had given a chilling demonstration of their capacity for destruction and, in the process, shattered eighteenth- and nineteenth-century notions of perfectibility through universal enlightenment, science, and technology. In the face of Auschwitz and Hiroshima, it seemed not only ingenuous but also indecent to affirm that humanity enjoyed some special dignity or unique status. The stark political alternatives appearing at the outset of the Cold War in 1947 also fueled an intellectual hostility to Christianity and humanism. For the French literati, the postwar ideological fault lines were simply too wide and too deep for genteel musings in the Renaissance tradition of humanities or the twentieth-century aestheticism consecrated by Andre Gide and La Nouvelle Revue Francaise (Sirinelli 141-49, 153-60). France's crushing defeat and humiliating occupation by the Germans had definitively discredited the witty, eclectic, skeptical yet optimistic humanism so prominent in the prewar philosophy of Alain and in the plays of Jean Giraudoux. History had trumped aesthetics: from the staunchly communist Louis Aragon and Paul Eluard, to the fiercely independent (if fellow-traveling) Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir, and even to those such as Albert Camus and Jean Paulhan who sought to transcend bipolar ideology, writers found themselves penning vehement editorials and arguing over the fate of collaborators and the future of a planet dominated by the Soviet Union and the United States. Francois Mauriac was no exception in addressing all these issues. Without serving as a standard-bearer for any political group or school of thought and without elaborating any general philosophy or ideological system, Mauriac nevertheless consistently articulated a Christian humanism in approaching a wide range of subjects. Amid the intellectual disarray of a world no longer rotating around the political, cultural, and economic axes of Europe, and much less France, he continued to place human beings at the forefront. In the face of unspeakable degradations by which humans had violated every recognized standard of moral behavior and profaned all notions of dignity and worth, Mauriac persisted in affirming the individual person as the locus of value, the basis of ethics, and the focus of knowledge. Confronting the uncompromising ideological and political rivalries taking shape not only in the Cold War but also in bloody colonial conflicts, he affirmed a common, universal humanity transcending ideological allegiances, national origins, and religious creeds. Moreover, Mauriac grounded his universal humanism in Christianity. Tzvetan Todorov has recently maintained that Christianity proves to be incompatible with a humanist perspective because it values human thought, action, and love only to the extent that they serve as stepping stones to the divine (Devoirs 226). Taking the contrary view, I shall explain how Mauriac's Christianity not only is compatible with universal humanism but also structures his portrayal of humankind's predicament in the later 1940s and early 1950s. After receiving the Nobel Prize for literature in 1952 largely on the basis of his psychological novels, Mauriac achieved even greater notoriety through a series of highly influential press articles known as the Bloc-notes (literally notepad), for which he is now widely recognized as France's most distinguished editorialist of the twentieth century. My focus here is the set of editorials from the dawn of the Cold War, edited and republished in 1999 by Jean Touzot. …

Republicanism, War and Democracy: The Ligue du Midi in France's War Against Prussia, 1870-1871

The Ligue du Midi was a patriotic republican organization founded in Marseille in September 1870 during the Franco‐Prussian War, under the leadership of Alphonse Esquiros. This article explores the conflicts between the Ligue and the republican Government of National Defence, which underscored the inherent difficulty faced by ‘Jacobin’ republican political culture in accommodating any substantial measure of local autonomy in nineteenth‐century France. These conflicts also draw attention to the difficult relationship between civilian and military authorities, the problems between the government and its own prefectoral administrators, and finally the strains between the ‘central’ government and local republican elected bodies and political groups. Although the Ligue was a failure in the short run, its emergence illustrated the dynamism and creativity of republican political culture on the eve of the Third Republic – most notably in its conception of active citizenship and patriotism, and its commitment to a municipalist form of republican decentralization.

Nietzsche and postmodernism in geography: An idealist critique

The suitability of a new philosophical paradigm for geography needs to be assessed in the context of the questions it was designed to address and on the basis of clearly articulated criteria. Postmodernism, the latest contender for the attention of geographers, is here assessed in relation to Collingwoodian idealism. As an intellectual movement postmodernism arose in the unique circumstances of academic life in post Second World War France. In this rigidly structured academic environment a new generation of French scholars, well schooled in the philosophies of Hegel, Husserl and Heidegger and the ideas of Marx and Freud, discovered the radical nineteenth century German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche and drew upon his ethical and philosophical writings to address contemporary issues of power, knowledge, truth and modernity. All the central anti-humanist ideas of what was to become postmodernism are to be found in Nietzsche: a distrust of science and knowledge truth claims, the notion of multiple interpret...

France and the Algerian War: strategy, operations and diplomacy

France's war in Algeria from 1954–62 has prompted new historical research and political polemics since 1992. Especially controversial has been an acknowledgement that torture was practised systematically, and the fact that French governments refused until 1999 to admit that Algeria was a real war, not just ‘a law and order problem’. Access to French archives, along with publication of memoirs and collections of letters by conscript troops, has permitted fresh social, cultural and literary perspectives, and new insights about the memory of this war in France and Algeria. The war's strategies and military operations, however, have been neglected. Yet these aspects illuminate the nature of the armed challenges by nationalist insurgents in the era of Cold War and European decolonizations. Algeria reveals the operational success of the responses by the French military forces and psychological warfare service. The war's international diplomacy suggests that another ‘operational theatre’ – that of the United Nations and world opinion – was where the Algerian National Liberation Front really outmanoeuvred France. This ensured that French Algeria's days were numbered by 1960, despite French success in defeating the armed insurrection within Algeria.

George Scharpe, c.1581-1637. A Scots doctor at Montpellier.

Before the eighteenth century many Scots studied medicine at the medical schools of Europe, of which Montpellier was frequently the choice. George Scharpe, an early student of the University of Edinburgh, graduated in medicine at Montpellier and joined the medical faculty, where his long career can be traced from contemporary records. The practice of Scots studying abroad is described, as is Languedoc in the early seventeenth century a region and period devastated by the religious wars of France.

Uncivil war: intellectuals and identity politics during the decolonization of Algeria

Uncivil War is a provocative study of intellectuals who confronted loss of France's most prized overseas possession, colonial Algeria. Tracing intellectual history of one of most violent wars of European decolonization, James D. Le Sueur illustrates how such key figures as Albert Camus, Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Germaine Tillion, Jacques Soustelle, Raymond Aron, Claude Levi-Strauss, Albert Memmi, Frantz Fanon, Mouloud Feraoun, Jean Amrouche, and Pierre Bourdieu agonized over question. As Le Sueur argues, these and other individuals forged new notions of nation and nationalism, giving rise to a politics of identity that continues to influence debate around world. Indeed, French-Algerian War occupies a seminal place in colonial and contemporary history. How did these varied intellectuals-many of whom had been influential in either shaping or critiquing ideology of colonial enterprise-reconstruct French national identity during decolonization? How was Algerian national identity also reconceptualized, in both intellectual and political circles, French and Algerian, on both right and left? How was colonial notion of French universalism debated and, by many, invalidated? What has politically charged concept of the Other to do with Algeria's decolonization? Le Sueur turns to a wide array of public archives, previously unstudied private collections, interviews, and published works to examine dynamism of these inquiries. He investigates Franco-Muslim relations from reconciliation to rupture, a transition resulting from rise of anticolonialism, political radicalism, military extremism, and Algerian nationalism, as well as looming threat of civil war in France. As Le Sueur reveals, it was incumbent upon intellectuals of day to respond to these crises in public arena. Whether to celebrate decolonization or decry it as a turning point in French and North African history, intellectuals engaged fully in identity debates and, in so doing, attended to a variety of political, social, moral, and even their own professional concerns. An interdisciplinary work of first order, Uncivil War combines anthropology, history, critical theory, and postcolonial studies in an intimate look at a pivotal and highly contested moment in modern history.

War and Society in Medieval and Early Modern Britain (review)

Reviews 229 Dunn, Diana, ed., War and Society in Medieval and Early Modern Britain, Liverpool, Liverpool University Press, 2000; paper; pp. vii, 213; R R P £14.95; ISBN 0853238855. This is in no way a general study of the topic of war and society in 'Britain' focused as it is on England, with glances at Wales and the Celticfringe.In all it is an interesting but somewhat eclectic collection of nine chapters which were originally papers presented at a colloquium held in Chester College in association with the University of Liverpool. This m a y explain the apparent randomness of the topics covered. Most contributors are locally based scholars and not surprisingly several chapters tend to be focused on the north western region ofEngland and the Welsh border areas, or relatedfields.Wars not fought on English soil are largely ignored, so Tudor era conflicts, such as Henry VHI's 'Rough Wooing' of Scotland, and Elizabeth's forces in Ireland or the Netherlands, are excluded. Similarly there is silence on naval matters, and economic aspects of supplying campaigns are not dealt with. There appears to be an unstated leaning towards cultural studies, but judging by some chapters there is simply too little in the sources for much satisfying work to appear. A s for any traditional military fare, that is eschewed. A specialist seeking a discussion of campaigns, hardware, and specific tactical or strategic issues will be disappointed. The book covers various aspects of some conflicts within England from the 1100s to the 1640s. However the claim that it 'focuses on three English civil wars' is misleading. It is clearly medieval with two thematic chapters on general issues and three chapters on the civil war between Stephen and Matilda (113843 approximately), and one on the Hundred Years War in France (1420s). The Wars of the Roses chapter (to 1471) is followed by a temporal jump over the entire Tudor period, bringing us to a rearguard oftwo chapters on the 1640s Civil War, a token Early M o d e m inclusion. There is no attempt at comparative analysis trfthese 'three civil wars'; they are treated in isolation. Thefirstthematic chapter deals with medieval accounts of wars, relating reports to attitudes about warfare from the 1100s to 1415 (Agincourt), noting a change from an emphasis on individual heroism and chivalric values to an awareness of an army as a whole, implicitly leading in to the Early M o d e m era of the 'military revolution'. Next comes an analysis of the process of naming battlefields (950-1450s approximately). Covering five centuries in 14 pages, this 230 Reviews is rather scrappy with its 'Typology of Battlefield Names' promising more than it delivers. Lacking a systematic framework, it fails in creating a useful typology. Parts ofthis chapter seem motivated by antiquarianism rather than analytic rigour. The issue of foreign mercenaries is an important part of warfare but the chapter on this issue in the reign of King Stephen is not tightly focused. In c o m m o n with several other chapters an excessive amount of space (almost half) is given over to summarising the general background of events in this war. In a work of scholarship, knowledge of this basic material might be assumed and space given over to more useful original analysis and presentation of research findings. The grand strategic issue of forging internal alliances is the only link of the theme of war and society with the chapter on King Stephen's creation of an unusual number of Earls. But the relation to the war is not so clear as there were some recent precedents for this and the process was abandoned before the war ended. Indeed the issue appears of more direct relevance to the history of the peerage or of local administration and its relation to royal government. The dynamic figure of Queen Margaret ofAnjou in the Wars of the Roses receives an interesting treatment. Her 'unwomanly' image, one magnified by Shakespeare for dramatic purposes, is set against five other Queens with absent or otherwise weak husbands. It is argued that the failings of Henry VI were blamed on Margaret as a means to avoid the political...

France, the United States, and the Algerian War

This book unravels the intertwining threads of the protracted agony of France's war with Algeria, the American role in the fall of the Fourth Republic, the long shadow of Charles de Gaulle, and the decisive post-war power of the United States. At its heart is an analysis of how Washington helped bring de Gaulle to power and a penetrating revisionist account of his Algerian policy. Departing from widely held interpretations of the Algerian War, the book approaches the conflict as an international diplomatic crisis whose outcome was primarily dependent on French relations with Washington, the NATO alliance, and the United Nations, rather than on military engagement. It makes extensive use of previously unexamined documents from the Department of State, the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and heretofore secret files of the Archives of the French Army at Vincennes and the Colonial Ministry at Aix-en-Provence. The book argues convincingly that de Gaulle always intended to keep Algeria French, in line with his goal to make France the center of a reorganized French union of autonomous but dependent African states and the heart of a Europe of cooperating states. Such a union, which the French called Eurafrica, would further France's chance to be an equal partner with Britain and the United States in a reordered “Free World.” In recent years the Algerian War has reclaimed its place in popular memory in France. Its interpreters have continued to view the conflict as a national, internal drama and de Gaulle as the second-time savior who ended French participation in a ruinous colonial war. But by analyzing the conflict in terms of French foreign policy, the book shows the pivotal role of the United States and counters certain political myths that portray de Gaulle as an emancipator of colonial peoples.

Reformation, Revolt and Civil War in France and the Netherlands 1555-1585

Reformation, Revolt and Civil War in France and the Netherlands 1555-1585

Visions of War in France: Fiction, Art, Ideology (review)

Visions of War in France: Fiction, Art, Ideology (review)

Collective Amnesia and the Mediation of Painful Pasts: the representation of France in the Second World War

Collective Amnesia and the Mediation of Painful Pasts: the representation of France in the Second World War

Mastering the Market: The State and the Grain Trade in Northern France, 1700-1860

List of figures and tables Abbreviations Old Regime weights and measures for wheat Acknowledgements Introduction - two crises: 1709 and 1853 Part I. The Market of the Enlightenment, 1720-1789: 1. The structure of mill and market 2. Simulated sales: shaping supply and demand in the Old Regime marketplace 3. Scripting 'free' trade 4. Narrowing the focus: bakers and bread, 1760-1789 Part II. Maximum: Feeding France in Revolution and War: 5. 1789: municipal revolutions and the origins of radicalism 6. Unity and interests 7. Recreating the market: Thermidor and the directory Part III. The State Learns, 1800-1860: 8. The last maximum: 1812 9. The routines of the restoration 10. Relinquishing control: bakers and the end of the Paris reserve 11. The market mastered Archival sources Selected bibliography Index.

Women and the Second World War in France 1939-1948: Choices and Constraints. By Hanna Diamond. (Longman Series on Women and Men in History). Harlow, Pearson Education, 1999. 231 pp. Pb 14.99.

Journal Article REVIEWS Get access Women and the Second World War in France 1939–1948: Choices and Constraints. By HANNA DIAMOND. (Longman Series on Women and Men in History). Harlow, Pearson Education, 1999. 231 pp. Pb £1.99. JACKIE CLARKE JACKIE CLARKE UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHAMPTONCAMBRIDGE Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar French Studies, Volume LV, Issue 1, January 2001, Pages 121–122, https://doi.org/10.1093/fs/LV.1.121 Published: 01 January 2001

Collective Amnesia and the Mediation of Painful Pasts: the representation of France in the Second World War

Museums and interpretation centres are one of the elements that contribute to the structuring of communal memories within societies. This article considers these processes through the specific study of the ways in which the collective memory of the Second World War in France has evolved. Emphasis is placed on an analysis of the representation of resistance in French museums and interpretation centres. An historical and spatial study of the development of these museums is also developed. This shows how the collective memory has been restructured in recent years as more and more people realise the need for a more ?honest? approach to the mediation of this difficult period in French history; a period that many would like to forget .

P. Benedict, Reformation, revolt and civil war in France and the Netherlands 1555-1585. Proceedings of the colloquium, Amsterdam, 29-31 October 1997

P. Benedict, Reformation, revolt and civil war in France and the Netherlands 1555-1585. Proceedings of the colloquium, Amsterdam, 29-31 October 1997

Women and the Second World War in France (1939-1948)

Women and the Second World War in France (1939-1948)

Visions of War in France: Fiction, Art, Ideology

Visions of War in France: Fiction, Art, Ideology

REVIEWS

Journal Article REVIEWS Get access Women and the Second World War in France 1939–1948: Choices and Constraints. By HANNA DIAMOND. (Longman Series on Women and Men in History). Harlow, Pearson Education, 1999. 231 pp. Pb £1.99. JACKIE CLARKE JACKIE CLARKE UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHAMPTONCAMBRIDGE Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar French Studies, Volume LV, Issue 1, January 2001, Pages 121–122, https://doi.org/10.1093/fs/LV.1.121 Published: 01 January 2001

Fallen Bodies: Pollution, Sexuality, & Demonology in the Middle Ages by Dyan Elliott (review)

REVIEWS71 Backes's The Hundred Years War in France (xi), and an authentic list of 81 primary and secondary sources, the research underpinnings of Timeline. ROBERT J . BLANCH Northeastern University DYAN Elliott, Fallen Bodies: Pollution, Sexuality, el·Demonology in the Middle Ages. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1999. Pp. xii, 300. isbn: 0-81223460 -x (cloth), $49.95; 0-8122-1665-2 (paper), $19.95. This is a fascinating and very important book, demanding concentration from the reader simply because the arguments are so rigorously laid out, in very clear and uncompromising prose. Professor Elliott details the attempts ofthe Western Church not only to contain sexuality but to get rid of it altogether, first among the clergy and then, grudgingly, among the laity. The distrust (and misunderstanding) of sexuality led to this absorption with the subject which occupied some of the best minds in the church's hierarchy. The book's six chapters follow the pattern laid out in the title. The first chapter deals mainly with nocturnal pollution in the male clergy and the resulting nightmares and waking visions engendered in the male psyche. These nightmares were caused by evil thoughts inflicted by the devil (as in Gregory the Great's Moralia), including the visitations of incubi and succubi. One such waking dream details the devil in the shape of a Benedictine nun visiting one of the sleeping brothers, who died within three days (31). The second chapter details the idea of 'demonic defloration' when the life of the imagination was allied with the demonic. In all the examples given in these chapters, the bed is the locus of transgression. In the third chapter, 'Sex in Holy Places,' the holy place, the church, a monastery, or the graveyard, is the locus oftransgression. This chapter required a precisely engaged, analytic mind to help the reader understand many hypothetical situations, for example, the situation of the demand by a partner in a marriage to have sex in a church. Because the people are married to each other, the partner who demands sex in a church must be satisfied, since Paul writes that the marital debt must be paid. The partner who must comply, therefore, commits no sin, since compliance is obligatory. Professor Elliott explores this hypothetical situation as an example ofmedieval anxiety about sex. Theodulf of Orleans (d.821) gives the offence the rubric of 'Irrational Fornication,' and William ofWaddington's Manueldes Péchiez describes such actions as a kind of theft from the holy place. Sin is attributed to the partner demanding the activity, as discussed by Alexander of Hales in the thirteenth century. The heart of the book is to be found in chapters four and five, 'The Priest's Wife' and 'Avatars of the Priest's Wife.' Most of the polluting elements in the first chapters take on a female form, like the devil in the form of a Benedictine nun. In chapters four and five, the subtext becomes clear. The fear ofwomen, irrational in itself, looms large in the church's attempts to control sexuality. Until the eleventh 72ARTHURIANA century, priests were allowed to marry, but as the doctrine of transubstantiation was developed, the clerical wife herself was seen as a polluting presence for the minister ofthe altar. Since the priest handled the very body and blood ofChrist, he had to be absolutely pure, and part ofthis purity was abstention from sexual activity as well as withdrawal from the very temptation to engage in such activity. The clerical wife was seen as an ambigous, mixed hybrid. Peter Damián wrote that 'God recognizes only three kinds of women: virgins, wives, and widows.' One wonders just how Peter knows this. The clerical wife did not fit any of these categories, and so she could not arrive in God's presence. The last chapter deals with demonology, discussing angelic and demonic disembodiment and the idea that since demons have no body, they cannot be sexually defiled. Professor Elliott must be commended for the clarity of her prose in presenting original sources as well as intricate analytical unraveling of much of this material, which seemed arcane to this reader. It is astonishing that the church would use so many resources...

Late Modern

HistoryVolume 85, Issue 280 p. 724-742 Late Modern First published: 16 December 2002 https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-229X.00171Citations: 1AboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditWechat Abstract Books reviewed: Donald M. MacRaild Irish Migrants in Modern Britain, 1750–1922 Iain McCalman (ed.), An Oxford Companion to the Romantic Age: British Culture, 1776-1832 Alvin Jackson Ireland 1798–1998: Politics and War Stevan K. Pavlowitch A History of the Balkans, 1804–1945 W. D. Rubinstein Britain’s Century: A Political and Social History 1815–1905 David Philips and Robert D. Storch Policing Provincial England 1829–1856: The Politics of Reform Graeme Morton Unionist Nationalism: Governing Urban Scotland, 1830–1860 Patrick Polden A History of the County Court, 1846–1971 Anne Digby The Evolution of British General Practice, 1850–1948 Eugenio F. Biagini Gladstone Standish Meacham Regaining Paradise: Englishness and the Early Garden City Movement Ian Packer Lloyd George Paula M. Krebs Gender, Race, and the Writing of Empire: Public Discourse and the Boer War Brian Bond and Nigel Cave (eds.), Haig: A Reappraisal 70 Years On T. Kirk and A. McElligott Opposing Fascism: Community, Authority and Resistance in Europe John Newsinger Orwell’s Politics Neil Gregor Daimler-Benz in the Third Reich Hanna Diamond Women and the Second World War in France 1939–1948: Choices and Constraints Cecil D. Eby Hungary at War: Civilians and Soldiers in World War II Joseph A. Soares The Decline of Privilege: The Modernization of Oxford University Robert Holland Britain and the Revolt in Cyprus 1954–1959 Joanna Bornat, Robert Perks, Paul Thompson and Jan Walmsley (eds.), Oral History, Health and Welfare Citing Literature Volume85, Issue280October 2000Pages 724-742 RelatedInformation