This book explores the commemorative afterlives of the Algerian War of Independence (1954-62), one of the world's most iconic wars of decolonisation. It focuses on the million French settlers - pieds-noirs - and the tens of thousands of harkis - the French army's native auxiliaries - who felt compelled to migrate to France when colonial rule ended.Challenging the idea that Algeria was a 'forgotten' war that only returned to French public attention in the 1990s, th...

On 5 July 1962, Algeria became an independent nation, bringing to an end 132 years of French colonial rule. Algeria Revisited provides an opportunity to critically re-examine the colonial period, the iconic war of decolonisation that brought it to an end and the enduring legacies of these years.Given the apparent centrality of violence in this history, this volume asks how we might re-imagine conflict so as to better understand its forms and functions in both the colonial ...

France's Lost Empires brings together ten essays that collectively investigate the historical, cultural, and political legacies of French colonialism and, specifically, the endings of the French empire(s). Combining analyses of three "lost" territories (Canada, India, and Saint Dominigue) of the "first" French colonial empire, that of the Ancien Regime, with investigations of the decolonization of the "new" colonies of the "second" French overseas empire (specifically in ...

Born in Martinique, Frantz Fanon (1925-61) trained as a psychiatrist in Lyon before taking up a post in colonial Algeria. He had already experienced racism as a volunteer in the Free French Army, in which he saw combat at the end of the Second World War. In Algeria, Fanon came into contact with the Front de Lib�ration Nationale, whose ruthless struggle for independence was met with exceptional violence from the French forces. He identified closely with the liberation movement, and his poli...

This landmark collection by an international group of scholars and public intellectuals represents a major reassessment of French colonial culture and how it continues to inform thinking about history, memory, and identity. This reexamination of French colonial culture, provides the basis for a revised understanding of its cultural, political, and social legacy and its lasting impact on postcolonial immigration, the treatment of ethnic minorities, and national identity.

Interpreting the Republic focuses on contemporary French literary and cinematic works (1986-2003) that reflect on what it means to belong to a nation such as France by giving voice to those who find themselves marginalized by French society. While citizenship and belonging can be, and indeed are, interpreted differently depending on the socio-cultural and political context, it is the foundational universalist republican principle of egalitarianism that has remained the sacred cow of French...

Collective Memory examines the difficult transmission of memory in France of the Algerian war of independence (1954-62). Emphasizing the current lack of transmission of memories of this war through a detailed case study of three crucial vectors of memory: the teaching of school history, coverage in the media, and discussion in the family, author McCormack argues that lack of transmission of memories is feeding into contemporary racism and exclusion in France. Collective Memory...

In defining Action Directe's mixture of millenarianism, workerism and nihilism, this study explains why the group turned to a strategy of murderous strikes and how a revolutionary political faction emerged in a stable western society.

In the inter war era, the rise of the largest political movement in modern French history, the powerful Croix de Feu (1927–1936), and its successor, the Parti Social Français, or PSF (1936–1945), led to a sharp rightward turn in France’s political culture. Political Belief in France, 1927–1945 traces the central role of women in this shift, arguing that they transformed the Croix de Feu/PSF from a paramilitary league for veterans into a social reform movement that sought to remake the poli...

In December 1921, France broadcast its first public radio program from a transmitter on the Eiffel Tower. In the decade that followed, radio evolved into a mass media capable of reaching millions. Crowds flocked to loudspeakers on city streets to listen to propaganda, children clustered around classroom radios, and families tuned in from their living rooms. Radio and the Politics of Sound in Interwar France, 1921–1939 examines the impact of this auditory culture on French society and polit...

Until the mid-20th century, France saw itself as a great power with universalist aspirations and global ambitions. But the Second World War and decolonisation irrevocably changed France's place in the world. Despite attempts to restore the country's 'grandeur' in the 1960s, the French have been forced to reconcile themselves to their modest place at the heart of a changing Europe. What impact has this had on political life? How have the French reimagined the revolutionary, republican and r...

Each of these essays begins with the words “A Canadian is . . .”. Each one is very different, producing a fascinating book for all thinking Canadians.Irvin Studin is an idealistic young Canadian who wanted to do something extraordinary for his country. So he decided to approach leading Canadians — he calls them “sages” — to tell us what they believe defines us. The people who responded eagerly, to produce an essay of 1,500 to 2,000 words, are, in his words, “all distinguished Canad...