Divided Memory: French Recollections of World War II from the Liberation to the Present - Hardcover

Wieviorka, Olivier

 
9780804774444: Divided Memory: French Recollections of World War II from the Liberation to the Present
Hardcover
ISBN 10: 0804774447 ISBN 13: 9780804774444
Publisher: Stanford University Press, 2012

Synopsis

France's experience of World War II was not primarily one of armed conflict, but rather of occupation, collaboration, resistance, and persecution. Since the end of the war, France has struggled with how to understand and remember that experience. In Divided Memory, Olivier Wieviorka recounts the role that the memory of the Occupation and the Resistance has played in shaping the sense of the past held by various segments of French society. He explores the way in which memory can focus political and social conflict. Each administration since the war has taken a different approach to responding to these memories and has attempted to steer public opinion through them. Charles de Gaulle tried to overwrite Vichy's collaboration by promoting the story of a French military victory over Germany. Others focused on memorializing victims or attempted to forget this painful time altogether. Wieviorka shows that, disparate as they are, none of these approaches have worked, and France remains divided by its memories of resistance and collaboration.

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About the Author

Olivier Wieviorka is Professor at the Institute of Political Social Sciences of the Ecole Normale Supérieure de Cachan. His books previously published in English include: Normandy. The Landings to the Liberation of Paris (2008) and Orphans of the Republic? The Nation's Legislators in Vichy France (2009).

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Publisher
Stanford University Press
Publication date
2012
Language
English
ISBN 10 
0804774447
ISBN 13 
9780804774444
Binding
Hardcover
Edition number
1
Number of pages
224