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Labour history and social history in France (1950--1980): From militance to university

Posted on:2004-06-30Degree:DrType:Thesis
University:Universidad de Zaragoza (Spain)Candidate:Ceamanos Llorens, RobertoFull Text:PDF
GTID:2465390011973537Subject:History
Abstract/Summary:
Originally, the French Labour movement history was written by its own protagonists. Their works became ideological arms in the confrontations between the currents of the Labour movements. It was a "battle-history" which focused on the political features of the most important organizations. Nevertheless, from the second half of the 20th century, this historiography began to pierce into the university which caused a transit from a weak, disperse and militant labour historiography to a strong, concentrated and universitarian one. This was possible thanks to four big bases: the archives consolidation, the starting of investigation centres, the creation of specialized publications and the help of some publishing houses. Jean Maitron promoted the projects which made possible the institutionalisation and the going in the university of the Labour History: the Centre d'Histoire Sociale du Syndicalisme and the magazine Le Mouvement Social.;In this construction of the labour universitarian historian, a great part of the protagonism was for Ernest Labrousse's students, whose thesis allowed the definitive integration of the Labour History in the universitarian world: Annie Kriegel studied the origins of the French communism, Claude Willard focused on the "guesdisme", Maurice Agulhon went into the origins of the republican tradition in the Var, Rolande Trempe studied the miners of Carmaux, Michelle Perrot analyzed the universe of the strikes and Yves Lequin investigated the Lyon working class. They were historians who lived intensely the great political and social fights of their time, especially the Argelian war and May 1968.;The following evolution of the Labour History was linked to the interdisciplinity development, mainly by the relations between the history with the economy, sociology and linguistics. At the same time, the political history lost its hegemony and studies about Labour History were developed, which focused on themes like industrial archaeology and culture. Finally, further the working class world, the Social History looked at the society as a whole and knew a thematic explosion as never before.
Keywords/Search Tags:History, Labour, Social
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