French history

• 
• SOURCE: Public Books
  3/29/2021
  

  Who's Afraid of Antiracism?

  by Chelsea Stieber

  Recent books in different genres shed light on the limits of the French governing ideal of republican universalism for a society where racism is real and historically significant. 

• 
• SOURCE: New York Times
  3/18/2021
  

  Napoleon Isn’t a Hero to Celebrate

  by Marlene Daut

  The veneration of Napoleon on the 200th anniversary of his death reflects a systemic problem in French education, which touts the color-blind universality of French republicanism (which Napoleon destroyed) without acknowedging his policy of attempted genocide in the effort to retake control of Haiti. 

• 
• SOURCE: New York Times
  2/18/2021
  

  Heating Up Culture Wars, France to Scour Universities for Ideas That ‘Corrupt Society’

  France's minister of higher education has pledged to investigate "Islamo-leftism" as a corrupting influence on society allegedly promoted by French university scholars. 

• 
• SOURCE: New York Times
  2/22/2021
  

  Lucky Luke, the Comic Book Cowboy, Discovers Race, Belatedly

  While Emmanuel Macron decries American obsessions with race and prejudice, right-wing French comics readers have reacted with anger to an effort to update the longstanding cowboy-themed comic franchise with heroic Black characters. 

• SOURCE: Washington Post
  2/21/2021
  

  Emmanuel Macron’s Socially Constructed Bogeymen

  by Daniel W. Drezner

  What, exactly, "Islamo-leftism" is, and what relationship it could possibly have to American academic theories, are two big questions left unanswered by the French President's attacks on academic ideas. 

• 
• SOURCE: New York Times
  2/9/2021
  

  France’s New Public Enemy: America’s Woke Left

  A body of American critical theory about the nexus of difference and power has proved threatening to a French intellectual elite that is historically invested in the nation's formally color-blind republican traditions even as ethnic and religious diversity exposes the gaps in those traditions. 

• 
• 2/7/2021
  

  Notre Dame: The Soul of France (Review)

  by Jeff Roquen

  Agnès Poirier's book describes the central place of the cathedral of Notre Dame de Paris in the city and in French history both religious and secular, and the angst provoked by its threatened destruction by fire in 2019.

• 
• SOURCE: The Atlantic
  1/19/2021
  

  France Knows How This Ends

  by James McAuley

  "What is especially useful to remember about the Dreyfus affair now is the point of no return it represented, the repugnant embrace of lies by one half of society, educated people who were not ignorant but who had simply ceased to care."

• 
• SOURCE: The Art Newspaper
  12/17/2020
  

  French Senate Blocks Restitution of 27 Artifacts to Benin and Senegal in Dispute with National Assembly

  The bill under consideration would compel France to return artifacts plundered from Benin and Senegal in the 1890s. 

• 
• 10/11/2020
  

  Paris, City of Dreams: Napoleon III, Baron Haussmann and the Creation of Paris

  by Jeff Roquen

  Nothing can compare to a visit to Paris, but until international travel resumes, readers can learn how the modern city was built through Mary McAulliffe's book. 

• 
• SOURCE: BBC
  9/25/2020
  

  Rimbaud and Verlaine: France Agonises over Digging up Gay Poets

  While advocates see reinterrment at the National Mausoleum as a recognition of gay contributors to French literary history, some opponents suggest the iconoclastic poets would have rejected any such honor. 

• 
• SOURCE: Made By History at The Washington Post
  8/27/2020
  

  Nepotism Is Bad For Government. Trump’s Convention Reminds Us Why

  by Christine Adams

  The pervasive influence of Trump's family members on government compares to the courts of the Bourbon kings of France. Republicans might consider how that worked out. 

• 
• SOURCE: Baltimore Sun
  6/11/2020
  

  Robert Forster, a Social Historian of France, Who Taught at Johns Hopkins for 31 Years

  Robert Forster, who passed away May 13, is remembered as a rigorous scholar and an organized, supportive teacher. 

• 
• SOURCE: History.com
  5/18/2020
  

  When Did People Start Eating in Restaurants?

  Historian Rebecca Spang's book "The Invention of the Restaurant" examines the French roots of dining out.

• 
• SOURCE: Johns Hopkins HUB
  5/15/2020
  

  History Professor Robert Forster dies at 93

  Forster, who taught at Hopkins from 1966 to 1996, was renowned for his work on the history of early modern France and is remembered as a generous, supportive mentor.

• 
• SOURCE: Washington Post
  1/16/20
  

  The battle for Notre Dame

  by Philip Kennicott and Aaron Steckelberg

  As the cathedral rises from the ashes, a tug of war over its transformation and history. 

• 
• SOURCE: The Conversation
  1/10/20
  

  We’re living in the bizarre world that Flaubert envisioned

  by Susanna Lee

  Many might feel bewildered and demoralized. But fans of the 19th-century French novel have seen this before.

• 
• SOURCE: NY Times
  10/22/19
  

  Georgette Elgey, 90, Dies; Wrote Epic History of Postwar France

  A former journalist, she spent nearly 50 years producing an acclaimed six-volume work on the Fourth Republic. Her own life held plenty of drama of its own.

• 
• SOURCE: Washington Post
  4/17/19
  

  Why you don’t need to be French or Catholic to mourn the Notre Dame fire

  by Kisha G. Tracy

  The cathedral is an important part of our shared cultural heritage.

• 
• SOURCE: Washington Post
  4/16/19
  

  The story behind the towering Notre Dame spire and the 30-year-old architect commissioned to rebuild it

  Less than a week before fire tore through Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, a repair crew brought down religious statues for the first time in more than a century.