France

• 
• SOURCE: Black Perspectives
  9/9/2020
  

  Black Women in Nineteenth-Century France: An Interview with Historian Robin Mitchell

  Robin Mitchell's book "Vénus Noire: Black Women and Colonial Fantasies in Nineteenth-Century France" examines how sexualized descriptions of Black women contributed to French racism.

• 
• SOURCE: New York Times
  9/4/2020
  

  A Coded Word From the Far Right Roils France’s Political Mainstream

  Historians Pascal Blanchard and Pap Ndiaye say that the hot-button term "ensauvagement" reflects France's unrecognized history of colonialism and the prevalent belief that the French helped elevate the people they colonized; the present-day right wing uses the term to imply that immigrants from France's former colonies require control and repression.

• 
• SOURCE: Foreign Affairs
  7/20/2020
  

  The Strange Defeat of the United States

  by Robert Zaretsky

  Eighty years later, Bloch’s investigation casts useful light for those historians who, gripped by the white heat of their own moment, may seek to understand the once unthinkable defeat of the United States in its “war” against the new coronavirus.

• 
• SOURCE: Slate
  7/13/2020
  

  The Book of Smells

  Historian Robert Muchembled’s new history is full of disgusting, delicious details about early modern France.

• 
• SOURCE: The Conversation
  6/30/2020
  

  When France Extorted Haiti – the Greatest Heist in History

  by Marlene Daut

  Because the indemnity Haiti paid to France is the first and only time a formerly enslaved people were forced to compensate those who had once enslaved them, Haiti should be at the center of the global movement for reparations.

• 
• SOURCE: Yahoo! News
  6/24/2020
  

  Top French Historian Slams Macron's Hardline Stance on Statues

  Historian Nicolas Offenstadt told French radio that Macron had a made a "hugely damaging confusion between history and memory that will not help public debate in France."

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• 6/14/2020
  

  Tear Down that Statue, Mr. Macron!

  by Marlene L. Daut

  Four figures from French history whose statues could replace that of Jefferson in Paris.

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• 6/14/2020
  

  Misremembering the Fall of France 80 Years Later (Part 2)

  by Robert J. Young

  The French defeat was driven by strategic error and faulty battlefield strategy, but not by a lack of will to fight. 

• 
• 6/14/2020
  

  Misremembering the Fall of France 80 Years Later (Part 1)

  by Robert J. Young

  On the 80th anniversary of the Fall of France, it's time to retire the idea that the French surrendered without a fight. 

• 
• SOURCE: The New York Times
  6/9/2020
  

  Its Defenses Undone by a Virus, France Seeks Lessons From a Lost War

  Marc Bloch's book "Strange Defeat," written in 1940 about France’s defeat in World War II, has taken on a curious resonance as the country gazes across the border at Germany and asks why it has weathered the pandemic better.

• 
• SOURCE: Air Mail
  6/6/2020
  

  Nazi Lockdown

  by Ronald C. Rosbottom

  The German occupation crushed ordinary life in Paris as its citizens hid from the “brown plague.”

• 
• SOURCE: Los Angeles Review of Books
  5/11/2020
  

  “Don’t Regret. Remember”: Frictions of History and Gender in Céline Sciamma’s “Portrait of a Lady on Fire”

  by Paris A. Spies-Gans

  Historian Paris A. Spies-Gans discusses the historical references and significance of the critically acclaimed French film.

• 
• SOURCE: History.com
  5/6/2020
  

  This Day in History: English Channel Tunnel Opens (1994)

  In 1996, the American Society of Civil Engineers identified the tunnel as one of the Seven Wonders of the Modern World.

• 
• SOURCE: New York Times
  4/6/2020
  

  Marie Antoinette Would Be Proud

  The palace has called on skilled designers, historians, botanists and gardeners to apply their expertise to the complicated work of restoring that spot, called Le Bosquet de la Reine, or the Queen’s Grove.

• 
• 11/10/19
  

  The History Behind a Recently Defaced French Holocaust Memorial

  by Norman JW Goda

  The memorial plaque at 12 rue Sainte-Catherine in the central part of town contained the names of the 86 Jews arrested at that address on 9 February 1943. It was the largest single roundup of Jews in the city. On the plaque, black paint was used to cross out their names. 

• 
• 10/6/19
  

  The Nazi Census and a Quiet Hero

  by Dwight Harshbarger

  The census and discrimination from Nazi Germany to today. 

• 
• SOURCE: NY Times
  8/15/19
  

  The Forgotten Story of Operation Anvil

  by Cameron Zinsou

  In August 1944, the United States executed a gigantic assault on southern France. Why does no one remember it?

• 
• 8/18/19
  

  “This letter is the last that I write to you:" The Courage of Youth Resisters in World War 2 France

  by Ronald C. Rosbottom

  Young people's impatience, their perceptive view of a better tomorrow, their faith in the power of solidarity, and their energetic fearlessness reminds us adults that change is possible. 

• 
• SOURCE: NY Times
  4/15/19
  

  ‘We Are Amplifying the Work’: France Starts Task Force on Art Looted Under Nazis

  Once the art market was flooded with works that had belonged to those fleeing Vichy.

• 
• SOURCE: New Yorker
  4/12/19
  

  The Campaign to Remove a Shocking Painting from the French Assembly

  One panel of the painting is meant to commemorate the abolition of slavery in France, in 1794, but it perpetuates grotesque racist stereotypes.