French history 
-
SOURCE: Tablet
6/28/2022
A Legend of Innocence
by Daniel Solomon
Both the French left and right are impeding the teaching of how 75,000 French Jews were turned over to the Nazis.
-
SOURCE: Forward
5/16/2022
Zemmour Acquitted of Holocaust Denial after Crediting Nazi Collaborator with Saving Jews
While there is substantial disagreement on whether Vichy leader Philippe Pétain's decision to turn over foreign-born Jews to the Nazis was motivated by a desire to save French Jews, a court ruled that the right-wing provocateur did not engage in Holocaust denial by endorsing that view.
-
SOURCE: Journal of Democracy
4/19/2022
To Save la République, Macron Can't Ignore the Left
by Moshik Temkin
Macron's centrist strategy in the face of a rising far right is dangerous, but reflects the long turn to the center by the Socialist Party. Can he expect left-leaning constituencies to once again vote to save France from fascism while getting nothing in return?
-
SOURCE: Slate
2/14/2022
The Enlightenment Precursor of the Social Media "Wife Guy"
by Meghan Roberts
The "wife guy" who self-servingly projects an image of domestic bliss and romantic devotion is not just a creation of the social media age.
-
SOURCE: Jacobin
1/11/2022
France's Socialists Adopted Neoliberalism and Punched their Tickets to Irrelevance
"What was the history that brought the French left to its current state of crisis, and does it show what other countries are going to experience in the future?"
-
SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
12/3/2021
Josephine Baker's Induction to the Pantheon Shouldn't Obscure how Other Black Women Served Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité
by Rachel Anne Gillett
"Even as White European audiences fell in love with her, Black women in France criticized her and the system that lifted her up."
-
SOURCE: New York Times
12/2/2021
In Zemmour, France's Old Bigotry Finds New Voice
by Mitchell Abidor and Miguel Lago
Presidential candidate Éric Zemmour's Jewishness should not be a shield for his manipulation of France's historical bigotries for political gain.
-
SOURCE: NPR
11/30/2021
Josephine Baker First American, Black Woman, and Performer Inducted to French Pantheon
"in 1963, Baker addressed the crowd at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. She wore her French Resistance uniform with the string of medals across her breast."
-
SOURCE: New York Times
10/16/2021
Macron Commemorates 1961 Killing of Algerian Protesters by Paris Police
Fabrice Riceputi, a historian of the Algerian War who has written about the killings, described the events of Oct. 17 as “a peak in a period of state terror that is inflicted on the colonized people.”
-
SOURCE: The Nation
8/23/2021
Web of Connections: Emma Rothschild's Microhistories of France
by David A. Bell
Historian David Bell reviews an effort to relate three centuries of French history through the lives of the descendants of one undistinguished eighteenth century Frenchwoman.
-
SOURCE: The New Yorker
8/16/2021
Why Don't the French Celebrate Lafayette?
Two new books examine the life and legacy of the Marquis de Lafayette, whose reputation in the United States far exceeds his esteem in his native France.
-
7/25/2021
The Difference a Day Makes: Robespierre's 9 Thermidor
by Colin Jones
The eventful 9 Thermidor (July 27, 1794) is seen as a pivotal day for French Revolution. Colin Jones digs deep into the archival documentation of the day and argues that the day's significance is real but misunderstood.
-
6/20/2021
Recovering the Stories of Pioneering Frenchwomen of Science
by Nina Gelbart
The stories of six French women of science show that women have been part of the scientific revolution from the beginning, and that moving toward gender parity in professional science is imperative.
-
SOURCE: Blue Book Diaries
5/10/2021
“Essentially an Evil Thing”
by Jonathan Wilson
Recent European controversies over the veneration of historical figures have considered war consequentially, as a means of achieving national ends. It's time to think of war, as the Nuremberg judges did, as an intrinsic evil.
-
SOURCE: New York Times
5/5/2021
France Battles Over Whether to "Cancel" or Celebrate Napoleon
French President Macron will place a wreath on the former Emperor's tomb to commemorate the bicentennial of his death, as French citizens debate his legacy including his contempt for Republicanism both in independent Haiti and in France itself.
-
SOURCE: Bloomberg CityLab
4/27/2021
Pandemic Lessons From the Era of ‘Les Miserables’
Medical historian Ed Cohen describes the 1832 cholera outbreak as "imperial blowback," as the disease arrived in Europe from their colonies. Nearly 2% of the city's population died, but the aftermath saw an increase in migration from the countryside and a flourishing of public health-oriented planning.
-
SOURCE: New York Times
4/19/2021
France Enabled 1994 Rwanda Genocide, Report Says
A Rwandan government commission has concluded that the government of France supported the leaders of genocide in Rwanda to sustain its own influence. This goes a step beyond a recent French government report that identified French involvement in virulent ethnic politics but not in genocide.
-
SOURCE: Public Books
3/29/2021
Who's Afraid of Antiracism?
by Chelsea Stieber
Recent books in different genres shed light on the limits of the French governing ideal of republican universalism for a society where racism is real and historically significant.
-
SOURCE: New York Times
3/18/2021
Napoleon Isn’t a Hero to Celebrate
by Marlene Daut
The veneration of Napoleon on the 200th anniversary of his death reflects a systemic problem in French education, which touts the color-blind universality of French republicanism (which Napoleon destroyed) without acknowedging his policy of attempted genocide in the effort to retake control of Haiti.
-
SOURCE: New York Times
2/18/2021
Heating Up Culture Wars, France to Scour Universities for Ideas That ‘Corrupt Society’
France's minister of higher education has pledged to investigate "Islamo-leftism" as a corrupting influence on society allegedly promoted by French university scholars.
News
- Leading Expert on Housing Discrimination Suing Appraisers for Discrimination
- A Century After the Elaine Massacre, Black Farmers in Arkansas Demand Justice
- American Democracy Wasn't Built to be Democratic
- VP Menon, the Civil Servant who Held India Together
- Nicole Hemmer on Alex Jones and the Right-Wing Media Machine