Chris Millington. Fighting for France

What place does political violence have in democratic society? This is the question Chris Millington seeks to answer in his thought-provoking Fighting for France: Violence in Interwar French Politics. While only a little over one hundred people died as a result of political violence in the 1920s and 1930s in France, Millington does not let this small number dissuade him from exploring the meaning of violence in interwar culture, thus rejecting Serge Berstein’s 1980s argument that violence had little place in a democratic society, where regular elections and verbal confrontations settled most political disputes. In five chapters, a historiographical introduction, and a conclusion, Millington rejects Berstein’s arguments and “rescues” understanding of the complex ways political violence engaged groups on both the Left and Right in France before 1940 (xxii). In doing so, Millington focuses on the physical spaces where violence occurred—public sites like street corners, intersections, and suburbs that formed the spatial backdrop to the topography of violence.

Argument (complex analysis) · Democracy · Epistemology · Historiography · Meaning (existential) · Political science · Political violence · Politics · Sociology · Communism, Protests, Social Movements · Historical Studies and Socio-cultural Analysis · Law · Philosophy · Vietnamese History and Culture Studies