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For the soul of France : culture wars in the age of Dreyfus / Frederick Brown.

By: Material type: TextTextPublication details: New York : Alfred A. Knopf, 2010.Edition: 1st edDescription: xxv, 304 p. : ill. ; 25 cmISBN:
  • 0307266311 (alk. paper)
  • 9780307266316 (alk. paper)
Other title:
  • Culture wars in the age of Dreyfus
Subject(s):
Contents:
From the life of Jesus to the Sacré-Coeur -- Birth pangs of a secular republic -- The crash of the Union Générale -- France on horse -- The ogre of modernity : Eiffel's tower -- The Panama scandal -- The Dreyfus affair -- The burning of the charity bazaar -- Two banquets.
Summary: Cultural historian Frederick Brown provides a portrait of fin-de-siècle France, whose defeat by Prussia in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71 resulted in a virtual civil war, waged without restraint, which toppled Napoléon III, crushed the Paris Commune, and provoked a dangerous nationalism that gripped the Republic. In the face of humiliation by Prussia, postwar France dissolved into two cultural factions: moderates, proponents of a secular state, and reactionaries--militant, Catholic, royalist--who felt that France had suffered defeat for having betrayed its true faith. A bitter debate took hold of the heart and soul of the country, framed by the vision of "science" and "technological advancement" versus "supernatural intervention." The roiling conflicts that began thirty years before Dreyfus did not end with his exoneration in 1900--instead they became the festering point that led to France's surrender to Hitler's armies in 1940.--From publisher description.
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Holdings
Item type Home library Collection Call number Materials specified Status Date due Barcode Item holds
Adult Book Adult Book Main Library NonFiction 944.081 B877 Available 33111006214106
Total holds: 0

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

In a perfect joining of subject and writer, cultural historian Frederick Brown, author of acclaimed biographies of Zola and Flaubert, gives us an ambitious and revealing portrait of fin de siecle France, an era of upheaval and uncertainty that helped to shape the first half of the twentieth century.
Brown examines the events leading up to the twilight years of the nineteenth century when, defeated in the Franco-Prussian war of 1870-71, France was forced to cede the border states of Alsace and Lorraine. In the subsequent civil war, Napoleon III was toppled, the Paris Commune was crushed, and a zealous nationalism gripped the republic, setting the stage for the Dreyfus affair. The author describes how postwar France was rent by a bitter debate between those who believed in science as the only way for the nation to regain its stature on the world stage, and those who believed in the singular ability of God to save their country. And he makes clear that the conflicts that began thirty years before Dreyfus became the festering points that led to France's surrender to Hitler in 1940, and to Marshal Petain, head of the collaborationist Vichy government, being heralded, at the time, as France's savior.
An essential book of French cultural history.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

From the life of Jesus to the Sacré-Coeur -- Birth pangs of a secular republic -- The crash of the Union Générale -- France on horse -- The ogre of modernity : Eiffel's tower -- The Panama scandal -- The Dreyfus affair -- The burning of the charity bazaar -- Two banquets.

Cultural historian Frederick Brown provides a portrait of fin-de-siècle France, whose defeat by Prussia in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71 resulted in a virtual civil war, waged without restraint, which toppled Napoléon III, crushed the Paris Commune, and provoked a dangerous nationalism that gripped the Republic. In the face of humiliation by Prussia, postwar France dissolved into two cultural factions: moderates, proponents of a secular state, and reactionaries--militant, Catholic, royalist--who felt that France had suffered defeat for having betrayed its true faith. A bitter debate took hold of the heart and soul of the country, framed by the vision of "science" and "technological advancement" versus "supernatural intervention." The roiling conflicts that began thirty years before Dreyfus did not end with his exoneration in 1900--instead they became the festering point that led to France's surrender to Hitler's armies in 1940.--From publisher description.

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