Description
Book SynopsisExamines how youth moved to the forefront of French politics in the two decades following the First World War. This book focuses on the competing efforts of the two groups to mobilize the young and harness generational aspirations.
Trade Review“
Mobilizing Youth offers an ambitious and imaginative look at two vital movements in interwar France, with a comparison that adds greatly to our understanding not just of French social and political history, but of the emergence of youth as an organized (and manipulated) force.”—
Peter N. Stearns, Provost, George Mason University
“In this fascinating book, the social history of French youth in the interwar years has finally found its historian. Susan B. Whitney’s extensive and careful research in the archives of communist and Catholic youth movements introduces us to the critical issues at stake: competition for the allegiance of the young between communists and Catholics, the key role played by adults in shaping youth activism, the influence of the changing political scene in the 1920's and 30's, and the long-term effects membership had on those who joined up. Whitney is particularly astute in her analysis of the place of gender; she shows us how traditional notions of sexual difference were at once reinforced and changed in the experience of young Catholics and communists who participated in these movements.”—
Joan W. Scott, Institute for Advanced Study
“Susan Whitney has a fascinating story to tell, and she tells it very well. She weaves individual voices and stories throughout her narrative, giving a human face to the highly contested landscape of youth organization in interwar France. Her thickly described sociocultural history plunges the reader into the world of young workers (Catholics and Communists, male and female), and her superb analysis reminds us of the often brutal impact that the First World War had on the children who lived through it and grew up to become young workers in its immediate aftermath.”—
Laura Lee Downs, École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments ix
Introduction 1
1. The Politics of Age and Generation in French Communism, 1920–1931 16
2. Building a Communist Youth Organization 51
3. Age, Generation, and Catholic Anticommunism: The Emergence of the J.O.C 80
4. Rereading the J.O.C. through the Lens of Gender: Young Women and the J.O.C.F. 107
5. Youth and the Emergence of Communist Antifascist Politics 137
6. Embracing the Status Quo: Communists, Young People, and Popular Front Politics 171
7. Refusing
la main tendue: Catholics, the J.O.C., and the Challenge of Communist Popular Front Societies 209
Conclusion 243
Notes 251
Bibliography of Primary Resources 303
Index 307
