Paris and the Right in the Twentieth Century
Editor: Jessica Wardhaugh
Date Of Publication: Jan 2007
Isbn13: 9781847180940
Isbn: 1-84718-094-9
Certain images of Paris have become icons for the left, but the Paris of the right has received far less attention. This groundbreaking collection of essays examines the relationship between Paris and the right in the twentieth century, exploring how political leaders and parties have depicted and controlled the streets, people and history of Paris, and how the city has been both context and inspiration for journalists and novelists of the right. The first part focuses on the relationship between the right, the street and the people, and describes some of the most contentious political movements in recent French history, from the anti-parliamentary leagues of the Belle Époque to the contemporary Front National. The second part examines the importance of Paris for de Gaulle and his successors in their exercise of authority and control, whether in the media, the streets, or municipal politics. Lastly, the book explores the Paris imagined and experienced by right-wing novelists from Charles Maurras to the post-war “Hussards”, mapping out an intellectual topography and emphasising the tensions between a real and imaginary city. A Franco-British collaboration spanning history, literary studies and political science, this volume offers an original contribution to the political geography, culture and symbolism of the French capital.

Dr Jessica Wardhaugh (née Irons) is a Junior Research Fellow in Modern History at Christ Church, Oxford. She has published articles on street politics during the French Popular Front, and on Communist and Catholic theatre in the 1930s. She is currently working on a study of the concepts of people and nation in France between 1934 and 1939.

"It really is an outstanding and innovative collection of essays, which breaks new conceptual ground in exploring the politics and culture of the Right in the French capital from the nineteenth century to the present day.

This is a fascinating subject, which does much to bring a much-needed understanding of how the Right has been a durable and successful presence in the life of the capital of France from the Dreyfus Affair to the election of Jacques Chirac as mayor. It is also a volume which brings together both French and British-based scholars of France, and is (for once) genuinely multi-disciplinary, including contributions by leading scholars of literature, history and politics.

I have no doubt that the collection will have a considerable impact and should be read by all those who are interested in understanding the diverse textures and cultures of the Right in modern and contemporary France."

Martin Conway

Baliol College, Oxford

"In this well-conceived volume of essays, the classic vision of a Paris divided between Eastern left-wing quarters and Western right-wing quarters is re-addressed with a new critical focus. From the close personal study of a Charles Maurras moving from one quarter to another as his career progressed to the more overt claiming of Parisian political space in demonstrations of the 1930s, 1960s or early twenty-first century, these essays offer a range of different insights which open up a new understanding of the relationship between the Right and the capital ... Wardhaugh modestly describes this volume as a call for new work, as an incentive for further explorations of a city that we know as much through the literature of Right and Left as we do through its political definitions. I suspect, however, that there is already a more significant conclusion to be drawn from the combined efforts of these authors: that the old heart of Paris, shaped as it is by a very particular pattern of social development, as well as the attempts of right-wing groups to assert themselves through political structures and of course, through the streets, has been for most of the twentieth-century a right-wing city, and that the claim of the Left to be the soul of Paris, as Paris is the beating political heart of France, rests more on the dominant intellectual influence of figures such as Jaures or Sartre than it does in reality, both physical and imagined, of the city as it is described here."

-Julian Wright, University of Durham, French History, OUP, June 2008

"This stimulating volume addresses a surprisinig lack of sustained analysis, identified by editor Jessica Wardhaugh in her well crafted introduction, of the relationship between the French capital and the modern French right.

...collectively they [the authors] make impressive contributions to the historiography of the French right which are bound to stimulate further research."

Professor Sean Kennedy, Universtiy of New Brunswick

Journal of Modern and Contemporary France, Vol 16; 3, August 2008

Price Uk Gbp: 34.99
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