The Jews, the Revolution, and the Old Regime in French Anti-Semitism and Durkheim's Sociology

2011 ◽  
Vol 29 (4) ◽  
pp. 248-271 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chad Alan Goldberg
Keyword(s):  
French Revolution ◽  
Emile Durkheim ◽  
Sociological Perspective ◽  
French Society ◽  
Old Regime ◽  
Anti Semitism ◽  
Alternative Vision ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The French Revolution

The relationship between European sociology and European anti-Semitism in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries is investigated through a case study of one sociologist, Émile Durkheim, in a single country, France. Reactionary and radical forms of anti-Semitism are distinguished and contrasted to Durkheim's sociological perspective. Durkheim's remarks about the Jews directly addressed anti-Semitic claims about them, their role in French society, and their relationship to modernity. At the same time, Durkheim was engaged in a reinterpretation of the French Revolution and its legacies that indirectly challenged other tenets of French anti-Semitism. In sum, Durkheim's work contains direct and indirect responses to reactionary and radical forms of anti-Semitism, and together these responses form a coherent alternative vision of the relationship between modernity and the Jews.

PROTESTANTISM AND PROGRESS IN THE YEAR XII: CHARLES VILLERS'SESSAY ON THE SPIRIT AND INFLUENCE OF LUTHER'S REFORMATION(1804)

2012 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 303-329 ◽  
Author(s):  
MICHAEL PRINTY
Keyword(s):  
French Revolution ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Old Regime ◽  
Social Struggle ◽  
The Reformation ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Broad Interest ◽  
The French Revolution

This article examines Charles Villers'sEssay on the Spirit and Influence of Luther's Reformation(1804) in its intellectual and historical context. Exiled from France after 1792, Villers intervened in important French and German debates about the relationship of religion, history, and philosophy. The article shows how he took up a German Protestant discussion on the meaning of the Reformation that had been underway from the 1770s through the end of the century, including efforts by Kantians to seize the mantle of Protestantism for themselves. Villers's essay capitalized on a broad interest in the question of Protestantism and its meaning for modern freedom around 1800. Revisiting the formation of the narrative of Protestantism and progress reveals that it was not a logical progression from Protestant theology or religion but rather part of a specific ideological and social struggle in the wake of the French Revolution and the collapse of the Old Regime.

The Taxing of the Clergy in Eighteenth-Century France

1964 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
pp. 157-174 ◽  
Author(s):  
Norman Ravitch
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
French Revolution ◽  
Social Order ◽  
Temporal Characteristic ◽  
Major Area ◽  
French Society ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The French Revolution ◽  
The Revolution

If after many years of scholarship and controversy, the French Revolution is to be seen, with Georges Lefebvre, as preeminently the revolution of equality, and its most important achievement the substitution of a bourgeois and individualistic social order for the former aristocratic and corporatist one, the nature of eighteenth-century corporate or “constituted bodies” becomes a major area for research. There are many questions which the historian would like to ask about these aristocratic institutions, but generally these questions fall into two groups: the relationship of these bodies to society as a whole, and their inner cohesiveness. By examining the taxation of the clergy in eighteenth-century France, we investigate the chief temporal characteristic of the ecclesiastical estate and are in a position to evaluate both its relationship to French society as a whole and its internal strengths and weaknesses.

The Glory and the Sorrow

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Timothy Tackett
Keyword(s):  
French Revolution ◽  
Small Time ◽  
Old Regime ◽  
Ordinary Citizen ◽  
Best Friend ◽  
The World ◽  
Cultural Intermediary ◽  
Insight Into ◽  
The French Revolution ◽  
The Revolution

The book describes the life and the world of a small-time lawyer, Adrien-Joseph Colson, who lived in central Paris from the end of the Old Regime through the first eight years of the French Revolution. It is based on over a thousand letters written by Colson about twice a week to his best friend living in the French province of Berry. By means of this correspondence, and of a variety of other sources, the book examines what it was like for an “ordinary citizen” to live through extraordinary times, and how Colson, in his position as a “social and cultural intermediary,” can provide insight into the life of a whole neighborhood on the central Right Bank, both before and during the Revolution. It explores the day-to-day experience of the Revolution: not only the thrill, the joy, and the enthusiasm, but also the uncertainty, the confusion, the anxiety, the disappointments—often all mixed together. It also throws light on some of the questions long debated by historians concerning the origins, the radicalization, the growth of violence, and the end of that Revolution.

Contemporary visions of France: the Revolution, Women and History: A Summary of the 1989 Fall Colloquia, New York University’s Institute of French Studies

1990 ◽  
Vol 10 (x) ◽  
pp. 287-307
Author(s):  
Richard Cicchillo
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
French Revolution ◽  
French Society ◽  
French Studies ◽  
The French Revolution ◽  
The Revolution

The seven colloquia held at New York University’s Institute of French Studies during the Fall 1989 semester offered some new perspectives on the French Revolution, and took stock of various elements of French Society and history two hundred years after the taking of the Bastille.

NOVEL NARRATIVES, NEW RESEARCH: THE FRENCH REVOLUTION AFTER THE BICENTENNIAL

1997 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 241-252
Author(s):  
GARY SAVAGE
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
French Revolution ◽  
Political Conflict ◽  
Old Regime ◽  
Historical Interpretation ◽  
Cambridge University ◽  
Family Romance ◽  
Duke University ◽  
New Research ◽  
The French Revolution

Revolution and political conflict in the French navy, 1789–1794. By William S. Cormack. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995. Pp. 343. £40.00.The family romance of the French revolution. By Lynn Hunt. London: Routledge, 1992. Pp. 213. £19.99.The French idea of freedom: the old regime and the Declaration of Rights of 1789. Edited by Dale Van Kley. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1995. Pp. 436. £35.00.A rhetoric of bourgeois revolution: the Abbé Sieyes and What is the third estate ? By William H. Sewell, Jr. Durham and London: Duke University Press, 1994. Pp. 221. £10.95.The genesis of the French revolution: a global-historical interpretation. By Bailey Stone. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995. Pp. 268. £12.95.The new regime: transformations of the French civic order, 1789–1820s. By Isser Woloch. New York and London: W. W. Norton, 1994. Pp. 536. £27.50.

Lavoisier writes to Fourcroy from prison

1958 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 59-60
Keyword(s):  
French Revolution ◽  
Ancien Regime ◽  
Chemical Revolution ◽  
Educational Curriculum ◽  
Ancien Régime ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The French Revolution

The principal architects of the ‘chemical revolution’ may well be said to have been Antoine Laurent Lavoisier (1743-1794) and Antoine Francois Fourcroy (1755-1809). The former by the intuitive genius of his brain, the extraordinary manipulative skill of his hands and the impeccable logic of his mind elaborated and set forth those truths on which modem chemistry was founded. The latter used his ingratiating and flexible personality, oratorical ability and facile pen to publicize the new chemistry and see that it was embodied in the educational curriculum. Lavoisier helped Fourcroy during his earlier years and used his prestige and influence to advance the younger man and obtain financial preferment for him. Under the ancien régime Lavoisier was rich, respected and influential; Fourcroy led a struggling existence for many years. The French Revolution was to bring Lavoisier misery and legal assassination; the same period saw Fourcroy’s prestige and power rise to a maximum. The relationship existing between the two men presents an as yet unsolved puzzle. Fourcroy’s biography still has to be written, as does an authoritative one of Lavoisier, when all the material is available. The latter’s standard biographer, Edouard Grimaux, wrote three-quarters of a century ago and his work needs to be superseded by an objective and fully documented modern study. Grimaux strongly condemned Fourcroy for allowing Lavoisier to be sent to the guillotine and implies that, possibly motivated by jealousy, he may have helped to speed him on his way. Modern scholars are inclined to the opinion that Grimaux maligned Fourcroy unjustifiably. The charge, however, was evidently current shortly after Lavoisier’s death, for in a speech delivered only two years after the lamentable event Fourcroy felt constrained to defend himself against an accusation which was to haunt him for the rest of his days and pursue him from his own death until the present day.

Captain Alfred Dreyfus: A case study in the group dynamics of scapegoating

2018 ◽  
Vol 51 (4) ◽  
pp. 515-530 ◽  
Author(s):  
Harold Behr
Keyword(s):  
Group Dynamics ◽  
Political Ideology ◽  
Emile Zola ◽  
Group Analysis ◽  
French Society ◽  
Far Right ◽  
Army Officer ◽  
Anti Semitism ◽  
History Of

This article explores the metaphor of the scapegoat by offering a case study taken from the history of France at the turn of the 20th-century. The case is presented of a French army officer, Captain Alfred Dreyfus, whose wrongful conviction for treason created an international sensation and tore French society apart. The author outlines the general features of the scapegoating dynamic and applies them to the Dreyfus case. He sets out the flow of events from Dreyfus’s first trial through to the official declaration of his innocence a century after his conviction, illustrating the tenacity of the scapegoating dynamic when an entire nation is caught up in the process. The view is put forward that it was the dramatic intervention by the novelist Emile Zola in the Dreyfus case which arrested the scapegoating process. The author asks what the implications of this might be for group analysis. At the centre of the Dreyfus case was the fact of his Jewishness. The author depicts anti-Semitism as a deeply rooted set of assumptions based on myths about the Jews. He touches on the origins of these myths in early monotheistic theology and in the political ideology of the Far Left and the Far Right. An explanation is offered for the persistence of these myths in our culture, which may extend to our understanding of myths surrounding other peoples and societies. The author concludes with some reflections on the recurring nature of the scapegoat phenomenon.

Moderation and the “Intertwining of Powers”

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aurelian Craiutu
Keyword(s):  
French Revolution ◽  
Separation Of Powers ◽  
Political Agenda ◽  
Old Regime ◽  
Arbitrary Power ◽  
Special Place ◽  
The People ◽  
History Of ◽  
Constitutional Monarchy ◽  
The French Revolution

This chapter examines political moderation in the writings of Jacques Necker, with particular emphasis on his views on constitutionalism. Necker occupies a special place in the history of political moderation. He defended the principles of constitutional monarchy successively against the king, the nobility, and the representatives of the people. Necker's works, composed at different stages of the French Revolution, articulated a political agenda revolving around the idea of moderation in opposition to arbitrary power and violence. The chapter first provides an overview of Necker's ideas before discussing his theoretical statements on reforming the Old Regime. It then explains Necker's trimming agenda and the consequences of immoderation before turning to the French constitution of 1791 and Necker's critique of the constitutions of 1795 and 1799. It also explores Necker's arguments regarding complex sovereignty, equality, and separation of powers.

Returning to the Leninist Line under Khrushchev and Brezhnev

2019 ◽  
pp. 301-317
Author(s):  
Jay Bergman
Keyword(s):  
French Revolution ◽  
Economic Changes ◽  
Stalin Era ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The French Revolution ◽  
The Revolution

Following Stalin’s death in 1953, the ambivalence with which Lenin viewed the Jacobins is once again the reigning orthodoxy. As a result, the debate among Soviet historians over the relationship between the Jacobin dictatorship and the Thermidorian reaction to it, which began in the 1920s but was interrupted during the Stalin era, resumed. Most considered the downfall of the Jacobins the catalyst for economic changes that essentially reversed the Jacobins’ policies; several others, however, saw a ‘growing over’ in terms of policy from the Jacobin phase of the French Revolution to the Thermidorian one. But the debate did not shake the consensus that the revolution ended with the demise of the Jacobins in 1794, rather than with Napoleon’s coup five years later.

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