French History - current issue

Duchesses and devils: the Breton succession crisis (1148-1189)

Pollock, M. — 2009-05-25

The duchy of Brittany is unusual in its development compared to contemporary polities of the twelfth century. The choice of Conan III to support his daughter Bertha's succession over that of his son, Hoël, just before his death in 1148, tore the traditional concepts of power apart and allowed for a series of counter claims through the female line to dominate ducal politics into the next century. The construct of female authority became a means to an end for male contenders, like Eudo de Porhöet, Conan IV, King Henry II and Henry's son, Geoffrey; however, the very recognition of the rights to succession through Bertha and her granddaughter, Constance, also elevated the role of the duchesses in a series of cross-Channel alliances, thereby placing the duchy itself at the centre of royal intrigue in France and England.

Le povre peuple estoit moult opprime: elite discourses on 'the people' in the Burgundian Netherlands (fourteenth to fifteenth centuries)

Dumolyn, J. — 2009-05-25

This article looks at discourses on ‘the people’, ‘the common man’ and other classifications of the subaltern social groups, produced by Jean Froissart and the Burgundian chroniclers who followed in his footsteps. In contrast to the significant political and economic dynamism attributed to the Flemish burghers in the development of the Burgundian state, these urban groups occupy only a very modest place in this chronicle tradition, while peasants are even less evident. If the lower classes are mentioned at all, it is in the most stereotyped manner. To the political elites of the Burgundian state, the common man was an unknown quantity, despised and feared, powerless to act on his own behalf. The people were considered good Christians when they suffered passively, but portrayed as evil or bestial creatures if they rebelled against authority.

Conflicts of memory: republicanism and the commemoration of the past in modern France

Hazareesingh, S. — 2009-05-25

The question of how State institutions should commemorate the past has generated considerable public controversy. Recent polemics point to the dilemma which political elites have grappled with since the Revolution: what content to give to the nation's ‘civil religion’ and which specific set of historical and ideological values should be collectively celebrated. Since its emergence after 1870, the Republic has sought to create a consensus in France through the sheer power of its commemorative force. Focusing on the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, this article will delve deeper into the complexities of modern republican collective memory. It will be argued that this memory needs to be understood in the context of its dialectical relationship with the memory of the democratic struggles of the French Left after 1871. The article touches on four interrelated themes: first, the ongoing debates about the heuristic value of the memory ‘label’; second, the strengths and dissonances of republican collective memory in the century that followed the French Revolution; third, the tension between republicanism and democracy in France, and how this was played out in the arena of the nation's civil religion in the early decades of the Third Republic; and finally, the continuing reflection of these divisions in contemporary French political culture.

Philanthropies croisees: a joint venture in public health at Lyon (1917-1940)

Saunier, P.-Y., Tournes, L. — 2009-05-25

Since the end of the First World War the Rockefeller Foundation has spearheaded a large-scale programme in the field of education for the health professions (doctors and nurses). In several countries throughout the world, but with its efforts concentrated on Europe, it has financed schools, constructed information networks, granted research scholarships and awarded training bursaries. In so doing it has not, however, been in the business of propagating an irresistible ‘American model’, nor has it pursued a huge undertaking in disinterested aid. Through an attempt to contextualize these programmes, to bring to light the existence of common reference points, to retrace the work with local participants and to appraise cleavages within the philanthropic apparatus, this article proposes a fine-grained reading of the role of the Rockefeller Foundation at the Faculté de Médecine (Faculty of Medicine) and the Ecole d’Infirmières et d’assistantes sociales (Training School for Nurses and Social Workers) in Lyon between 1917- and 1940. It analyses these institutions in terms of the transactions, negotiations and appropriations that highlight their joint-venture character and it identifies their varied impact.

The Marseille police and the German forced labour draft (1943-1944)

Kitson, S. — 2009-05-25

The German forced labour draft of 1943 has long been seen as a major catalyst for the French Resistance. It also clearly helped undermine the Vichy government. But what effect did it have on the police who were expected to implement it? This article demonstrates that it helped damage their relationship with Vichy, police officers engaged in widespread acts of defiance on this issue and it changed the social composition of the police by encouraging many to join the force simply to avoid being drafted. One of the preferred weapons of the police for sabotaging the scheme was theatrical zeal, which was open to misinterpretation.

Who was the author of L'Histoire des desastres de Saint-Domingue, published in Paris in the year III?

Benzaken, J.-C. — 2009-05-25

France and the American Tropics to 1700 * In Search of Empire: The French in the Americas, 1670-1730

McLay, K. — 2009-05-25

Les Huguenots dans les iles britanniques de la Renaissance aux Lumieres, Ecrits religieux et representations * Dictionnaire des pasteurs dans la France du XVIIIe siecle

Chaze, E. — 2009-05-25

Memoirs, Hortense Mancini and Marie Mancini

Chaze, E. — 2009-05-25

The Great Nation in Decline: Sex, Modernity and Health Crisis in Revolutionary France c. 1750-1850

Macdonald, J. M. — 2009-05-25

Hospital Politics in Seventeenth-Century France: The Crown, Urban Elites and the Poor

Macdonald, J. M. — 2009-05-25

Sociabilite et politique en milieu rural

Plack, N. — 2009-05-25

Reading Tocqueville: From Oracle to Actor

Armenteros, C. — 2009-05-25

Paris and the Commune 1871-78: The Politics of Forgetting

Rockett, S. — 2009-05-25

France from 1851 to the Present: Universalism in Crisis

Baycroft, T. — 2009-05-25

The Boundaries of the Republic: Migrant Rights and the Limits of Universalism in France, 1918-1940

Dodds, D. — 2009-05-25

The Lasting War; Society and Identity in Britain, France, and Germany after 1945

Barros, A. — 2009-05-25

Shantytown Kid [Le Gone du Chaaba] * Ethnicity and Equality: France in the Balance

Von Bulow, M. — 2009-05-25

SSFH Society News

2009-05-25