Books
Books - Nina Fishman recommends. . .
Published 17 October 2005
La Vie en Bleu: France and the French since 1900
Rod Kedward Penguin, 740pp, £30.00
ISBN 0713990414
Rod Kedward's compendious work is very easy to read. It is also essential reading for those who consider themselves a citizen of Europe. Kedward has distilled his ideas over many years, and the result is wonderful, vintage stuff.
Although Kedward has spent much of his adult life researching and living in France, this is not an insider's book. He provides compact, unobtrusive explanations, filling in the background of geography, culture and basic social reflexes for readers in other countries. Kedward chronicles the impact of modernisation and the persistence of tradition. He enables readers to appreciate the "unity in diversity" of a France made up of regional identities overlain by a pervasive sense of la nation and a people strongly attached to republicanism. His treatment of the French experience of the two world wars is particularly illuminating, providing an important counterbalance to our Anglo-centric assumptions.
Kedward's research specialism is the resistance in the Second World War, and he tells this story enthrallingly but without sentiment. Reading this book has both broadened and deepened my understanding of France and all things French. It is wonderfully user-friendly, with a full glossary of acronyms and easy-to-use endnotes.
Nina Fishman is professor of industrial and labour history at the University of Westminster
Extract from La Vie en Bleu
"There was no photo-fit resister, no ideal type, no model. Throughout the Resistance . . . the word 'resister' could stand for man, wo- man, adult, youth; Catholic, Protestant, Jew, non-believer; French person or foreigner. Resisters were constantly surprised to find who their contacts and co-resisters were. In all histories after the war they spoke of pride in diversity, trust in difference, and the readiness to work side by side with people of all kinds . . .
Individual women were among the originators of several movements and networks: their achievements became nationally celebrated. At local level women created vital infrastructures of care, supply and communication . . . they were everywhere as liaison agents, able to travel alone or together without raising . . . suspicion. They passed through barriers more easily; they used shopping bags, children's satchels, prams even, to convey tracks, arms and ammunition; they used or simulated pregnancy to escape being searched. Gender attributes were turned to subversion, and few women resisters regarded this subordinate to male activity. Most speak of an equality in resistance that was keenly felt at the time. There was a distribution and sharing of danger, inventiveness and skills which revolutionised the individual lives of men and women."
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