Republican Identities in War and Peace

Antoine Prost's contributions to French history have enabled us to understand the failure of fascism in France and why the Republic survived the humiliation of occupation and collaboration in the Second World War. He is the pre-eminent historian of civil society in France. For the first time his seminal articles have been translated into English and collected in this single volume. Beginning with his classic account of war memorials, through his pioneering study of the people of a popular quarter of Paris in 1936, and of the troubled history of commemorating the Algerian war, this book expertly takes us through republican representations of war and peace, urban spaces and social identity, and discourse and social conflict in republican France. Amongst this range of topics, Prost considers the notion of social class and deference, the multiple uses of myth, the secularization of religious imagery, the centrality of primary schools in French political culture, and insults as staples of French political rhetoric. Included here are his famous essays 'Verdun' and 'War Memorials of the Great War', which have been hailed as indispensable additions to the study of European cultural history. Also notable is his fascinating investigation of rites de passage in Orléans, which artfully reveals how complex and semiologically rich rites de passage can be.This book is essential reading for anyone wishing to gain a firm understanding of the history of nineteenth and twentieth century France and of the work of one of the most influential cultural historians of our day.

Antoine Prost

Preface Introduction: Antoine Prost and the History of Civil Society Jay Winter I. National Identity 1 War Memorials of the Great War: Monuments to the Fallen 2 Verdun: The life of a Site of Memory 3 The Contribution of the Republican Primary School to French National Identity 4 Representations of War in Inter-War France 5 The Algerian War in French Collective Memory II. Identities and Civil Society: Urban Space, Social Identities and Youth 6 The People of Paris: The Eighteenth Arrondissement in 1936 7 Celebrating Joan: A Feast of Collective Identity in Orl,ans since the French Revolution 8 Marriage, Youth and Society in Orl,ans in 1911 9 Youth in Inter-War France III. Identities and the Discourse of Political Conflict 10 Votes and Words 11 Workers, Others and the State 12 The French Contempt for Politics: The case of Veterans in the Inter-War Period 13 The Strikes of 1936: The Occupation of Factories and the Decline of Deference Index