Paris and the spirit of 1919: consumer struggles, transnationalism and revolution

This history of Paris in 1919 explores the global implications of French political activism at the end of World War I. This transnational history of Paris in 1919 explores the global implications of the revolutionary crisis of French society at the end of World War I, using the events of 1919 to illustrate broader tensions in working class, race and gender politics in Parisian, Frenchand ultimately global society. This transnational history of Paris in 1919 explores the global implications of the revolutionary crisis of French society at the end of World War I, using the events of 1919 to illustrate broader tensions in working class, race and gender politics in Parisian, French and ultimately global society. This transnational history of Paris in 1919 explores the global implications of the revolutionary crisis of French society at the end ofWorld War I. As the site of the peace conference Paris was a victorious capital and a city at the center of the world, and Tyler Stovall explores these intersections of globalization and local revolution. The book takes as its central point the eruption of political activism in 1919, using the events of that year to illustrate broader tensions in working class, race, and gender politicsin Parisian, French, and ultimately global society which fueled debates aboutcolonial subjects and the empire. Viewing consumerism and consumer politics as key both to the revolutionary crisis and to new ideas about working class identity, and arguing against the idea that consumerism depoliticized working people, this history of local labor movements is a study in the making of the modern world. Advance praise: 'Paris and the Spirit of 1919 is a major new synthesis of the fundamental changes shaping working-class politics and identity inthe interwar years. Tyler Stovall persuasively argues for 1919 as a focal point for key transformations in French society and politics during the twentiethcentury. By insisting on the political significance of working class consumption, Stovall's study brings together the histories of labor and consumerism in a highly original way. Written with verve and exceptional clarity, this long-awaited book both foregrounds and revitalizes class as a category of historical analysis. [This book] should be required reading for all labor and social historians as well as scholars of modern Europe.' Mary Louise Roberts, University of Wisconsin 'By means of an empirically rich, intensive study of a single year, Paris and the Spirit of 1919 makes a fundamental contribution to our understanding of both the French state and the transformation of the working class in the twentieth century. Tyler Stovall succeeds admirably in bringing together the histories of consumerism and labor, drawing on and incisively contributing to both historiographies. The book is a pleasure to read; it is elegantlywritten, beautifully argued, and well-documented.' Leora Auslander, University of Chicago 'Shifting the focus of postwar France from 1920 - the birth of the Communist Party, the beginning of Moscow's lasting graft on French politics - to 1919 is no small feat. The capital of modern culture also appears as a crossroads between colonial and migrant families looking for an insertion into the metropolis, consumers and renters taking the home and the market as reasonsfor collective action, and strikers trying to change the international and national world of work. Both exclusions and social movements are powerful sources of the recasting of urban France, not only elites and avant-gardes.' PatrickFridenson, Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales INDICE: Introduction: a year like no other; 1. The consumers' war; 2. The working class of Paris: definitions and identities; 3. Remaking the French working class: race, gender and exclusion; 4. Spectacular politics; 5. Consumer movements; 6. Time, money, and revolution: the metalworkers' strike of June, 1919; Conclusion: legacies.

• ISBN: 978-1-107-01801-3
• Editorial: Cambridge University
• Encuadernacion: Cartoné
• Páginas: 354
• Fecha Publicación: 22/03/2012
• Nº Volúmenes: 1
• Idioma: Inglés