France and Germany in an Age of Crisis, 1900-1960 PDF Download

Author: H. Shamir
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 900461866X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 419

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Book Description
France and Germany, two great powers in Europe and the world, had in many respects a similar fate in the first half of the twentieth century. Both nations knew war and defeat, social upheaval, grave economic crisis, as well as political turmoil, including major changes in their political regime. On the other hand, the two countries also faced some very different experiences in the course of their history in this period. Germany had the terrible experience of the Third Reich, while France shared with other powers the agonies of decolonisation. Here is a collection of twenty two studies, dealing with important aspects of the history of the two nations. The studies are grouped under seven headings and include topics like foreign policy in peace and war, domestic changes, the impact of ideologies, the colonical and Jewish aspects. Taken as a whole, these studies offer many new perceptions and insights to the history of France and Germany in the twentieth century.

Author: Haim Shamir
Publisher: Brill Archive
ISBN: 9789004092280
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 430

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Book Description
This collection of essays, both in French and English, is dedicated to the life and work of Bloch, one of the founding fathers of Tel Aviv University and the first scholar to teach modern and contemporary European history at this institution. It examines the roots of Bloch's political conception in relation to 20th c. German and French history, contains a section on French and German foreign policy during this period, and examines the respective countries' participation in the two world wars. It also contains a historical overview of European Jewry during this period. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Author: Brian Jenkins
Publisher: Berghahn Books
ISBN: 9781845452971
Category : Fascism
Languages : en
Pages : 252

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Book Description
This volume brings together the leading critics of the 'immunity thesis' to fascism in France in the 1930s - Robert Paxton, Zeev Sternhell and Robert Soucy - who have refined and updated their positions in these essays.

Author: Peter Jackson
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0191543144
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 456

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Book Description
France and the Nazi Menace examines the French response to the challenge posed by National Socialist Germany in the years 1933-1939. It focuses on the relationship between the intelligence on German intentions and capabilities and the evolution of French national policy from the rise of Hitler in 1933 to the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939. Based on extensive archival research, it considers the nature of the intelligence process and the place of intelligence within the French policy making establishment during the inter-war period. The central argument in the book is that the German threat was far from the only challenge facing French national leaders in an era of economic depression and profound ideological discord. Only after the national humiliation at the Munich Conference did the threat from Nazi Germany take precedence over France's internal problems in the making of policy.

Author: Andrew Webster
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351596020
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 385

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Book Description
Strange Allies examines three intersecting themes of fundamental importance to the international history of the period between the two world wars. First, and most broadly, it is a study of the international history of the pivotal ‘hinge years’, running from the onset of the Depression in late 1929 to the Nazi capture of power in Germany in early 1933. The second theme is the strategic relationship between Britain and France, the critical dynamic in the management of global and European international relations during this time of great fluidity and uncertainty. The most contentious and intractable issue that divided the two countries was the pursuit of international disarmament, which forms the third theme of the book. Strange Allies is based upon extensive research in British and French archives, as well as in the archives of the League of Nations in Geneva. The book’s focus on 1929–31 in particular makes a major contribution to the international history of the interwar period by re-examining the security and strategic policies of the second Labour government in Britain and of foreign minister Aristide Briand in the post-Locarno years in France. For 1931–33, the book looks at the impact of the great financial and economic crisis of 1931 on security and disarmament planning in Britain and France. It then considers the impact of the Anglo-French relationship on the instability of Europe and on the failure of the World Disarmament Conference. This book is the first detailed study of the Anglo-French relationship during a critical period which saw a reshaping of the boundaries of global security. Although the Anglo-French alliance is rightly seen to be pivotal to both the initial phase of implementing the Versailles settlement of 1919 and the efforts to contain Hitler and protect Europe after 1936, Strange Allies demonstrates the degree to which these states’ conflicting views of security were central to international relations in the years leading up to Hitler’s accession to power.

Author: Michael E. Nolan
Publisher: Berghahn Books
ISBN: 9781845453015
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 160

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Book Description
It is hard to imagine nowadays that, for many years, France and Germany considered each other as "arch enemies." And yet, for well over a century, these two countries waged verbal and ultimately violent wars against each other. This study explores a particularly virulent phase during which each of these two nations projected certain assumptions about national character onto the other - distorted images, motivated by antipathy, fear, and envy, which contributed to the growing hostility between the two countries in the years before the First World War. Most remarkably, as the author discovered, the qualities each country ascribed to its chief adversary appeared to be exaggerated or negative versions of precisely those qualities that it perceived to be lacking or inadequate in itself. Moreover, banishing undesirable traits and projecting them onto another people was also an essential step in the consolidation of national identity. As such, it established a pattern that has become all too familiar to students of nationalism and xenophobia in recent decades. This study shows that antagonism between states is not a fact of nature but socially constructed.

Author: Galia Press-Barnathan
Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Pre
ISBN: 0822973588
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 268

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Book Description
Much attention has focused on the ongoing role of economics in the prevention of armed conflict and the deterioration of relations. In The Political Economy of Transitions to Peace, Galia Press-Barnathan focuses on the importance of economics in initiating and sustaining peaceful relations after conflict.Press-Barnathan provides in-depth case studies of several key relationships in the post-World War II era: Israel and Egypt; Israel and Jordan; Japan, the Philippines, and Indonesia; Japan and South Korea; Germany and France; and Germany and Poland. She creates an analytical framework through which to view each of these cases based on three factors: the domestic balance between winners and losers from transition to peace; the economic disparity between former enemies; and the impact of third parties on stimulating new cooperative economic initiatives. Her approach provides both a regional and cross-regional comparative analysis of the degree of success in maintaining and advancing peace, of the challenges faced by many nations in negotiating peace after conflict, and of the unique role of economic factors in this highly political process. Press-Barnathan employs both liberal and realist theory to examine the motivations of these states and the societies they represent. She also weighs their power relations to see how these factor into economic interdependence and the peace process. She reveals the predominant role of the state and big business in the initial transition phase ("cold" peace), but also identifies an equally vital need for a subsequent broader societal coalition in the second, normalizing phase ("warm" peace). Both levels of engagement, Press-Barnathan argues, are essential to a durable peace. Finally, she points to the complex role that third parties can play in these transitions, and the limited long-term impact of direct economic side-payments to the parties.

Author: William I. Hitchcock
Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Press
ISBN: 0807866806
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 308

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Book Description
Historians of the Cold War, argues William Hitchcock, have too often overlooked the part that European nations played in shaping the post-World War II international system. In particular, France, a country beset by economic difficulties and political instability in the aftermath of the war, has been given short shrift. With this book, Hitchcock restores France to the narrative of Cold War history and illuminates its central role in the reconstruction of Europe. Drawing on a wide array of evidence from French, American, and British archives, he shows that France constructed a coherent national strategy for domestic and international recovery and pursued that strategy with tenacity and effectiveness in the first postwar decade. This once-occupied nation played a vital part in the occupation and administration of Germany, framed the key institutions of the "new" Europe, helped forge the NATO alliance, and engineered an astonishing economic recovery. In the process, France successfully contested American leadership in Europe and used its position as a key Cold War ally to extract concessions from Washington on a wide range of economic and security issues.

Author: Anthony Adamthwaite
Publisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 1472578015
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 297

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Book Description
A central question in European history is how did a great power pre-eminent in 1918 lie defeated by the same enemy less than 20 years later. Until recently the explanation has been sought in fundamental weaknesses that could only leave the French of 1940 hamstrung and demoralized. Recent studies have challenged that view and now, for the first time, the revisionist approach is displayed in a single volume, both summarizing the research of others and drawing on the author's own work in the archives. The book is about as far from 'dry as dust' diplomatic history as it's possible to get. Its very readable and the author manages to show with the telling anecdote that even a serious subject has its comic side: that, for instance, the French High Command kept forces stationed in the Alps for seven years because no one in the foreign service had thought to pass on news about a secret treaty between Italy and France in 1902; or that after a particularly stressful meeting Andrew Bonar Law, the British prime minister, mouth to Poincaré, the French president, through the closed carriage window of his train 'and you go to hell', all the while smiling and exuding affability. Such episodes are not the substance of the book, but they oil its progress.

Author: R. Gerald Hughes
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 113427016X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 335

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Book Description
This edited volume brings together many of the world’s leading scholars of intelligence with a number of former senior practitioners to facilitate a wide-ranging dialogue on the central challenges confronting students of intelligence. The book presents a series of documents, nearly all of which are published here for the first time, accompanied by both overview and commentary sections. The central objectives of this collection are twofold. First, it seeks to build on existing scholarship on intelligence in deepening our understanding of its impact on a series of key events in the international history of the past century. Further, it aims to explore the different ways in which intelligence can be studied by bringing together both scholarly and practical expertise to examine a range of primary material relevant to the history of intelligence since the early twentieth century. This book will be of great interest to students of intelligence, strategic and security studies, foreign policy and international history.