Description
Book SynopsisThis text addresses a central question in the history of modern France and modern colonialism: how did the Third Republic, highly regarded for its professed democratic values, allow itself to be seduced by the insidious and persistent appeal of a civilizing ideology with distinct racist overtones?
Trade Review"Conklin brilliantly traces the interconnections and linkages between the three critical sites of political, cultural, and ideological interchange in France's civilizing mission in Africa: the imperial center, the colonial edifice sur place in West Africa, and the Africans themselves. This is scholarship that will eventually provoke a significant change in the way modern French history is conceived, researched, and written." -Julia Clancy-Smith,University of Arizona
Table of ContentsA note on orthography and translation; Introduction; 1. The setting: the idea of the civilizing mission in 1895 and the creation of the government general; 2. Public works and public health: civilization, technology, and science (1902-1914); 3. Forging the republican Sujet: schools, courts, and the attack on slavery (1902-1908); 4. 'En faire des hommes': William Ponty and the pursuit of moral progress (1908-1914); 5. Revolt and reaction: World War I and its consequences (1914-1930); 6. 'Democracy' reinvented: civilization through association (1914-1930); 7. Civilization through coercion: human Mise en Valeur in the 1920s; Conclusion; Notes; Bibliography; Index.
