Fighters Across Frontiers Transnational Resistance in Europe, 1936-48
November 2020
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Edited book
This landmark book, the product of years of research by a team of two dozen historians, reveals that resistance to occupation by Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy during the Second World War was not narrowly delineated by country but ...
History
Empires of the Mind
February 2019
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Book
Laïcité, Republic and Nation in Post-Colonial France
February 2018
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Journal article
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Contemporary European History
4303 Historical Studies, 43 History, Heritage and Archaeology
"Les Inconnus de la resistance": letters to L’Humanité, 1984
November 2017
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Journal article
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Essays in French Literature and Culture
In 1984 the Communist daily 'L'Humanite' invited its readers to send in testimonies of resistance activity in Vichy and German-occupied France. The project may be seen as an attempt by the Communist Party to recover some legitimacy at a moment when its wartime record was under attack and electoral support in decline. An analysis of the 400 letters received nevertheless also allows us to explore what ordinary people thought resistance was: was it the heroic, organised actions of the few or the sporadic, spontaneous and symbolic gestures of the many?
Resist or collaborate?
May 2017
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Journal article
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Aoen
‘1968’
January 2017
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Chapter
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Europa, Lieux de mémoire. I Poids du passé, choix du passé
‘The Global 1968 and international communism’
January 2017
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Chapter
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The Cambridge History of Communism III
Résistances européennes: tableau politique et militaire
November 2015
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Chapter
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Encyclopédie de la Seconde Guerre mondiale
Fighters in the Shadows: A New History of the French Resistance
September 2015
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Book
From award-winning historian Robert Gildea, Fighters in the Shadows tells the story of the French Resistance - as it was, rather than how some choose to remember it.
The Transnational in the Local: The Larzac Plateau as a Site of Transnational Activism since 1970
July 2015
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Journal article
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Journal of Contemporary History
This article explores the case of the Larzac plateau in southern France which was the site of protests against the extension of a military base in the 1970s. It analyses the development of the site as a focus of local, national and transnational protest, drawing in post-1968 gauchistes in France and West Germany. After the cancellation of the military base the Larzac protest became a model for protest from Latin America to the Pacific against the threats of globalization, which in turn transformed local protest. The limits of transnationalism were nevertheless demonstrated by contested understandings of the Larzac model of non-violent protest by activists from different contexts with their own agendas.
Lettres de correspondants français à la BBC (1940-1943) : une pénombre de la Résistance
January 2015
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Journal article
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Vingtieme Siecle: revue d'histoire
Cet article exploite un fonds de lettres adressées à la BBC par des correspondants français entre 1940 et 1943 et vise à contribuer au débat sur l’étendue de la résistance en France. Il défend la thèse de l’existence d’une « pénombre », soit d’une mouvance entre l’opinion publique et la résistance organisée des ombres qui chercha à reconstruire symboliquement la communauté nationale et à entamer un dialogue avec Londres sur le comportement des Alliés, la fidélité au maréchal Pétain ou au général de Gaulle et la persécution des juifs. Ces correspondants furent rarement des hommes en âge d’être militarisés, qui pensaient à résister militairement, et davantage des anciens combattants, des femmes et des jeunes.
BBC, lettre, opinion publique, Résistance, Seconde Guerre mondiale
Europe's 1968: Voices of Revolt
June 2013
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Book
By the late 1960s, in a Europe divided by the Cold War and challenged by global revolution in Latin America, Asia, and Africa, thousands of young people threw themselves into activism to change both the world and themselves. This new and exciting study of "Europe's 1968" is based on the rich oral histories of nearly 500 former activists collected by an international team of historians across fourteen countries. Activists' own voices reflect on how they were drawn into activism, how they worked and struggled together, how they combined the political and the personal in their lives, and the pride or regret with which they look back on those momentous years. Themes explored include generational revolt and activists' relationship with their families, the meanings of revolution, transnational encounters and spaces of revolt, faith and radicalism, dropping out, gender and sexuality, and revolutionary violence. Focussing on the way in which the activists themselves made sense of their revolt, this work makes a major contribution to both oral history and memory studies. This ambitious study ranges widely across Europe from Franco's Spain to the Soviet Union, and from the two Germanys to Greece, and throws new light on moments and movements which both united and divided the activists of Europe's 1968.
History
Utopia and conflict in the oral testimonies of French 1968 activists
January 2013
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Journal article
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Memory Studies
There are two conflicting cultural memories of 1968: one that celebrates liberation and the other that condemns political violence and sexual excess. This article, based on interviews with five former 1968 activists in France, explores the ways in which they seek to navigate between their personal memories of becoming an activist, positive and negative group memories of being an activist, and the contested cultural memories of 1968, in order to make sense of 1968 and their part in it.
European Radicals and the ‘Third World’: Imagined Solidarities and Radical Networks, 1958-1973
December 2011
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Journal article
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Cultural and Social History
This article addresses the importance of Third Worldism/tiersmondisme as a source of inspiration for European radicals on both sides of the Iron Curtain 1958–73, focusing on the cases of France, the Netherlands and Hungary. Using both oral history and archival material, it considers the decline of domestic anti-fascist traditions as a source of revolutionary identity; the emergence of new political networks both within and outside Europe based on solidarity with ‘Third World’ anti-imperial movements; and the way in which the Algerian anti-colonial movement, the Cuban revolution, the Chinese cultural revolution and the struggles of Vietnam provided inspiration for, and were ‘domesticated’ by, European activists. Finally, the article considers the decline of Third Worldism as a source of inspiration for political practice in the early to mid-1970s.
La hantise de devenir vieux cons comme ses parents’ : activist definition of the 1968 generation in France
January 2011
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Chapter
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'Talkin' 'bout my generation': Conflicts of generation building and Europe's '1963'
Voices of Europe's '68
January 2011
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Journal article
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Cultural and Social History
4303 Historical Studies, 43 History, Heritage and Archaeology
The Long March of Oral History: Around 1968 in France
January 2010
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Journal article
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Oral History
Eternal France: Crisis and National Self-Perception in France, 1870-2005
November 2009
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Chapter
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Nations and their histories: Constructions and Representations
History
Flawed Saviours: the Myths of Hindenburg and Pétain
July 2009
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Journal article
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European History Quarterly
Although Hindenburg and Pétain emerged from very different historical traditions, one monarchical and authoritarian, the other democratic and republican, their trajectories and cults in the twentieth century in fact had much in common. Both emerged as military heroes, saving the fatherland in 1914 in iconic victories, and both were subsequently called back as political saviours as the Weimar and Third Republics ran into difficulties and collapsed. The status and reputation of each was enhanced by a cult that was both manufactured and spontaneous, ranging widely across the political spectrum and reaching deep into the body politic. The cults drew on powerful images of solidity and ancient heroes. Both leaders were, however, flawed, compromising with Nazi power, and they were buried far from the sites of their victories. In spite of these flaws, however, the cults of Hindenburg and Pétain have been remarkably adaptable and enduring.
Forty years on: French writing on 1968 in 2008
March 2009
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Journal article
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French History
Every ten years after the events of 1968 in France, there has been a spate of publications about this pivotal moment in the twentieth century. In 1978, the Maoist leader Robert Linhart published his experience of ‘going to the people’ as a car worker in L’Etabli. 1988 saw the publication of Laurent Joffrin's Mai 68. Histoire des événements and Génération by Hervé Hamon and Patrick Rotman, a collective biography of the Paris-centred intellectual leadership of 1968, especially the Maoists. In 1998, Jean-Pierre Le Goff attacked what he saw as the hedonistic, amoral project of 1968 in Mai 68, l'héritage impossible, an attack that was resumed by Nicolas Sarkozy during the presidential election campaign of 2007, when he vowed to ‘liquidate 1968’...
Writing Contemporary History
July 2008
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Book
Writing Contemporary History brings together some of the world's most pre-eminent historians to discuss the core issues confronting students of contemporary history today. Tackling ten key questions of current historiographical debate, each chapter sets in parallel and in opposition the contributions of two scholars. Questions include: Does gender history have a future? When does colonial history end? What is cultural history now about? This volume takes to heart the central rationale of the Writing History series, namely to combine theoretical reflection with the practice of producing historical texts. It introduces the reader to a variety of important theoretical approaches in the field of contemporary history writing and asks how these approaches have shaped historical writing in this important sub-discipline.
History
1968 in 2008'
January 2008
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Journal article
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History Today
Children of the Revolution: The French 1799-1914
January 2008
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Book
From soldiers to priests, from peasants to Communards, from feminists to literary figures such as Victor Hugo and Honoré de Balzac, Robert Gildea's brilliant...
History
Surviving Hitler and Mussolini Daily Life in Occupied Europe
June 2006
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Book
Daily Life in Occupied Europe Robert Gildea, Olivier Wieviorka, Anette Warring.
Occupation in Europe Series Surviving Hitler and Mussolini is part of the
European Science Foundation (ESF) programme 'Occupation in Europe: The
Impact of ...
History
To Work or Not to Work
June 2006
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Chapter
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Surviving Hitler and Mussolini Daily Life in Occupied Europe
Daily Life in Occupied Europe Robert Gildea, Olivier Wieviorka, Anette Warring. Occupation in Europe Series Surviving Hitler and Mussolini is part of the European Science Foundation (ESF) programme 'Occupation in Europe: The Impact of...'
History
Mediators or time-servers: local officials and notables in the Loire Valley, 1940-1945
March 2006
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Chapter
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Local Government in Occupied Europe (1939-1945)
Through a collection of case studies, this volume aims to address the question how the German occupier during World Ward II organized its collaboration with local and regional authorities.
History
Resistance, Reprisals and Community in Occupied France
December 2003
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Journal article
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Transactions of the Royal Historical Society
This essay examines the issue of armed resistance in France 1941–4 through the lens of collective reprisals inflicted on local communities as a result of armed resistance. It uses three examples from different parts of France: the north, the west and the Massif Central. It examines not only the incidents themselves and the reprisals but the way in which the local communities reacted to and commemorated the events in the years after the war. The essay concludes that local communities were at best ambivalent towards and at worst hostile to acts of armed resistance committed in their midst
Barricades and Borders: Europe 1800-1914
March 2003
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Book
This is a comprehensive survey of European history from the coup detat of Napoleon Bonaparte in France to the assassination of the Archduke Ferdinand at Sarajevo, which led to the First World War.
History
Myth, Memory and Policy in France since 1945
August 2002
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Chapter
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Memory and Power in Post-War Europe Studies in the Presence of the Past
How has memory - collective and individual - influenced European politics after the Second World War and after 1989 in particular? How has the past been used in domestic struggles for power, and how have 'historical lessons' been applied in foreign policy? While there is now a burgeoning field of social and cultural memory studies, mostly focused on commemorations and monuments, this volume is the first to examine the connection between memory and politics directly. It investigates how memory is officially recast, personally reworked and often violently re-instilled after wars, and, above all, the ways memory shapes present power constellations. The chapters combine theoretical innovation in their approach to the study of memory with deeply historical, empirically based case studies of major European countries. The volume concludes with reflections on the ethics of memory, and the politics of truth, justice and forgetting after 1945 and 1989.
History
Province and nation
February 2002
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Chapter
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Revolutionary France: 1788-1880
The French Revolution of 1789 was followed by a century of upheaval, rebellion, and change. Napoleonic dictatorship, monarchical restoration, Second Republic, and Second Empire all rapidly succeeded one another, and it was not until the advent of the Third Republic in the 1870s that political stability was restored. The period 1788-1880 thus possesses a unity as Revolutionary France, though it is seldom treated as a whole. In this volume, a team of leading international historians explore the major issues of politics and society, together with the dynamics of culture, gender, national identity, and overseas empire, during this vital period of French history.
1848 in European Collective Memory
January 2002
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Chapter
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The Revolutions in Europe, 1848–1849
France Since 1945
January 2002
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Book
The last fifty years of French history have seen immense challenges for the French: constructing a new European order, building a modern economy, searching for a stable political system. It has also been a time of anxiety and doubt. The French have had to come to terms with the legacy of the German Occupation, the loss of Empire, the political and social implications of the influx of foreign immigrants, the rise of Islam, the destruction of rural life, and the threat of Anglo-American culture to French language and civilization.
Robert Gildea's account examines the French political system and France's role in the world from 1945 to 2000. He looks at France's attempt to recover national greatness after the Second World War, its attempt to deal with the fear of German resurgence by building the European Community, and its struggle to preserve its Empire. He also discusses the Algerian War and its legacy, and the later development of a neo-colonialism to preserve its influence in Africa and the Pacific. Gildea also examines the rise and fall of the two Republics, the rise of and fall of De Gaulle, and the revolution of 1968, along with topics such as the construction of the myth of the Resistance, the painful truths of French involvement in anti-Semitic persecution, and France's continuing obsession with national identity.
History
Marianne in Chains: In Search of the German Occupation, 1940-1945
January 2002
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Book
Focusing on the area around Tours in the Loire, Robert Gildea provides a microscopic view of daily life during the German Occupation during World War II.
History
France, 1870-1914
January 1996
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Book
The period 1870 - 1914 in France saw the consolidation of republican government and the recovery of national self-confidence. Though political crises such as the Dreyfus Affair threatened to tear it apart, the Republic established firm parliamentary rule, built up an Empire and an army which was to see it through the Great War. The new edition of this key text - first published as The Third Republic From 1870 to 1914 - offers a clear introduction to the period and incorporates the latest research.
History
The Past in French History
January 1994
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Book
This fascinating book offers a new perspective on French history and political culture by examining how the commemoration of the past pervades French public life.
History
Education in Provincial France, 1800-1914: A Study of Three Departments