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Resiting French resistance

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journal contribution
posted on 2023-06-07, 20:34 authored by H R Kedward
Exceptions, minorities, non-conformities, individual refusals and small group actions, these are words with which historians of the French Resistance learn to live. The words allow social detail to flourish, but they stand in the way of general social conclusions and question the kind of class representation which seems so convincing in René Clément's film of the resistance of railway workers, La Bataille du rail (1946), but which cannot be sustained for the working class as a whole. Is there a social history of the Resistance? Are all generalities suspect? The French nation as a category is far too large, so is the working class, and equally so the bourgeoisie and the peasantry: it has often been argued that social and political categorisation of the Resistance is nothing but a captivating mirage, tantalising every new interpreter who sets out to give much needed structure to empirical research.

History

Publication status

  • Published

File Version

  • Published version

Journal

Transactions of the Royal Historical Society

ISSN

0080-4401

Publisher

Cambridge University Press

Volume

9

Page range

271-282

ISBN

0080-4401

Department affiliated with

  • History Publications

Full text available

  • Yes

Peer reviewed?

  • Yes

Legacy Posted Date

2012-02-06

First Open Access (FOA) Date

2016-03-22

First Compliant Deposit (FCD) Date

2016-11-16

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