A sort ofAt the end of December 1989, France The commemoration of his revolution ended two centuries ago. Culture Minister Jack Long announced: “Let us stop, concentrate, and remember how lucky we are to experience this amazing moment. Tonight does not mark the end of the 200th anniversary, but a prologue: to what we are forming A prelude to the third century of freedom.”
This moment of naive optimism is even more compelling, because French people rarely tend to be over-enthusiastic in modern politics. Every president seems to have set a record low in opinion polls. The anger on the street has never been far away.
A fascinating and unrealistic history of France has spread to these coasts Across the strait When the two countries rarely feel so upset. France in the worldAt the beginning of 2017, a collection of 1392 pages was published in China. Since then, France had to fight against terrorist attacks, Yellow vest, The catastrophic fire of Notre Dame de Paris, the revival of the far right, Trump, Brexit and other populist freaks, and Emmanuel Macron, the enemy of almost everyone.
Start with prehistory and end with history Attack on Charlie Hebdo and Batakland In 2015, this is a chronicle of the French, which has nothing to do with territory or lineage, but with certain ideals and ways of thinking. Its view of the past is that of the stubborn liberal left, and that colonialism and global finance are the root causes of most contemporary ills.
This is a book worthy of in-depth study and enjoyment. This is inconsistent, and perhaps it must be so. The topics and geography range from agriculture to philosophy to social customs, from Algiers to Siam, from the Suez Canal to the south coast of England.
It contains huge loopholes and dizzying choices. The First World War was mainly assessed from the vantage point of New Caledonia and the guerrilla warfare involving the indigenous Kanaks and French colonial forces. An eternal theme throughout the narrative is the shadow cast by French imperialism on several continents.Attention is no longer focused on the German surrender and the Treaty of Versailles, but on the role of the International Labour Office, Coco Chanel and perfume, and Charles Aznavour and Armenian immigrants.
The editors Patrick Boucheron (French version) and Stéphane Gerson (English version) tried their best to explain the methodology, beginning with 35 pages to outline their ideas. Nearly 150 papers have been written by more than 100 historians.
Some stories are fascinating for familiar times. The persecution and mass immigration of the Huguenots after Louis XIV revoked the Nantes edict skillfully provided a modern background for intolerance and escape. The Dreyfus incident helps explain the anti-Semitism before and after. A section on the Black Death in the 14th century reviews how powerful powers used destruction to suppress new freedoms. Taught us a lesson in this era-although this chapter and subsequent chapters on cholera in the 19th century were written before the coronavirus pandemic.
One of the most fascinating articles is the controversy surrounding the publication in 1949. Simone de Beauvoir secondary. This story is both universal and typical French. Although Albert Camus was very progressive, he accused her of “mocking French masculinity.”Seventy years later, Catherine Deneuve and many others had similar experiences Heart palpitations#MeToo.
The most special chapter may be the most compelling. The revolution of 1848 is an indispensable part of any European history curriculum, but how many people know about the Utopia year or the “first communist party” held in Belleville in 1840? “The social utopia formed in 1840 not only sought to improve the conditions of French labor,” wrote the historian François Jarrige. “They yearn for the large-scale regeneration of mankind.”
The land of romanticism is also the land of harmony and regulation. From March to May 1875, Paris hosted an unusual summit. The 20 countries participating in the conference are not to deal with border disputes or to carve up the world. Instead, they signed the “Metric Convention” to standardize the new measurement. Except for the island nation of Britain, almost everyone accepted it.
Perhaps most importantly, the language defines French. Villers-Cotterêts is a commune in the northeast of the capital, and obviously there is not much place to display it. Today, it has a population of 10,000 and a municipality ruled by the far right. In 2014, the newly elected mayor refused to participate in a ceremony celebrating the abolition of slavery. However, since 1539, it has been synonymous with a more auspicious event, even if the location was an accident. Francis I happened to live hunting in a castle in the nearby woodland. He decided to sign the “Ville-Cotlet Act” in this place, making French a mandatory requirement in laws and national documents. Since then, the French have picked up the stick.
Three and a half centuries later, Victor Hugo A question was raised: “How to recognize the wisdom of people all over the world”? He continued to answer himself: “There is a certain sign: whether they can speak French.” According to this and other standards, Brexit has not performed well.
