The Price of Isolation
Fascism, Vichy and the Holocaust in French History
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 7150932 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Christophe Farquet (University of Geneva, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2025 |
| Volume | 34 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 549-556 |
| Publication date | 2025-05-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Contemporary European History (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0960-7773 • E-ISSN: 1469-2171 |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1017/s0960777323000498 |
| OpenAlex | W4386291642 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 7 |
The historiographical debate about France during the Second World War has long been dominated by two foreign historians. On the one hand, the Israeli intellectual Zeev Sternhell notoriously placed the origin of fascism in France's Belle Epoque and saw Vichy France as the paradigmatic example of a fascist regime in his book, Neither Right nor Left , four decades ago. Year after year, Sternhell, who had studied in Paris, made criticisms of the Parisian intellectual milieu and denounced its egocentrism and provincialism. On the other hand, American historian Robert Paxton reigned over the history of French collaboration with Nazi Germany. Although it raised certain controversies when it was translated into French in 1973, his Vichy France has been since accepted as the key reference on the subject, as well as an indispensable pedagogical tool against apologetic views of Marshall Pétain's regime, which enjoy periodic revivals in the country. Despite their age – Sternhell died in 2020 and Paxton is ninety years old – these two historians have remained the unavoidable cornerstones in the discussion on French attitudes during the Second World War – the first as a competitor, the second as a paternal figure
Art · Economic history · Historiography · Ideology · Intellectual history · Literature · Nazism · Political science · Politics · Spanish Civil War · The Holocaust · World War II · Classics · European Political History Analysis · French Historical and Cultural Studies · Historical Studies and Socio-cultural Analysis · History · Law
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |