France Since the Popular Front [antikvár]

PREFACE History is commonly called the mythology of advanced societies. Its form and content are shaped by the questions we ask of it, while its direction and force stem from the assurances we seek in it. This book is meant for the reader who is looking for a history of the interaction of people, government, and material change in France during the last fifty years, and who is less immediately concerned with the rich diversity of life that Ues beyond the direct influence of government and economic forces. The cukural and leisure activities of the French have been well described in several recent books in English, while the broad structural changes of post-war France have been thematically examined in a number of useful publications that dissect the country's development since the Liberation and look individually at its basic elements.' Yet, paradoxically, there are few English histories of France that span the great divide of the Second World War—the point at which the chronological accounts of the historians give way to the theme-by-theme analyses of social scientists and area-studies writers. There are admittedly more histories of this kind in French. But they are inclined to treat France in isolation, and it is rare for them to consider how far the developments they are describing are pecuUar to France and how far they reflect wider European currents. In seeking to fill some of these gaps, I have attempted to set the changing fortunes of France in a comparative, international context, juxtaposing the French performance with that of her neighbours, in particular Germany, Britain, and Italy. But, since the reader's prime concern is likely to be with France, I have tried to do this as concisely as possible, allowing the tables of comparative data to speak for themselves, rather than intrude continuously into the discussion of French affairs in the main text. Given the book's main focus on the interrelation of people, government, and economy, other themes receive sparser treatment. If man is spirit as well as consumer, then spirit gets somewhat short shrift in the pages that follow. I have included very little on France's many distinguished writers and creative artists, except when they exphcitly enter the political arena; and if Michel Foucault was right in claiming in 1970 that 'our entire epoch struggles to disengage itself from Hegel', the reader may be forgiven for f^aiUng to pick up the point from what is offered here. Nor will he find an exhaustive analysis of the private and collective neuroses of the population in thought-provoking chapters with ' Among the first category, see T. Zeldin, The French (London, 1983), and J. Ardagh, The New France: A Society in Transition, 1945-1977 (London, 1977), subsequently reissued as France in the 1980s (London, 1982); and among the second category, see D. L. Hanley, A. P. Kerr, and N. H. Waites, ContLmporary France: Politics and Society since 1945, 2nd edn. (London, 1984).