Lecture Description
France's colonial territories were of very high importance after the embarrassment of occupation during World War II. Algeria, in particular, was a complicated case because it involved large numbers of French settlers, the pieds-noirs. Despite international support for Algerian independence, right-wing factions in the military and among the colonizers remained committed to staying the course. After Charles de Gaulle presided over French withdrawal, the cause of the pieds-noirs has remained divisive in French political life, particularly on the right.
Course Index
- Introduction
- The Paris Commune and Its Legacy
- Centralized State and Republic
- A Nation - Peasants, Language, and French Identity
- Workshop and Factory
- The Waning of Religious Authority
- Mass Politics and the Political Challenge from the Left
- Dynamite Club: The Anarchists
- General Boulanger and Captain Dreyfus
- Cafes and the Culture of Drink
- Paris and the Belle Epoque
- French Imperialism (Guest Lecture by Charles Keith)
- The Origins of World War I
- Trench Warfare
- The Home Front
- The Great War, Grief, and Memory (Guest Lecture by Bruno Cabanes)
- The Popular Front
- The Dark Years: Vichy France
- Resistance
- Battles For and Against Americanization
- Vietnam and Algeria
- Charles De Gaulle
- May 1968
- Immigration
Course Description
This course covers the emergence of modern France. Topics include the social, economic, and political transformation of France; the impact of France's revolutionary heritage, of industrialization, and of the dislocation wrought by two world wars; and the political response of the Left and the Right to changing French society.