French Peasant Fascism: Henry Dorgères' Greenshirts and the Crises of French Agriculture, 1929-1939: Henry Dorgeres' Greenshirts and the Crises of French Agriculture, 1929-1939 Book + PRICE WATCH * Amazon pricing is not included in price watch

French Peasant Fascism: Henry Dorgères' Greenshirts and the Crises of French Agriculture, 1929-1939: Henry Dorgeres' Greenshirts and the Crises of French Agriculture, 1929-1939 Book

Though Robert O. Paxton entitles his book French Peasant Fascism, it soon becomes clear that the French peasant political movements of the 1930s were less about totalitarianism than about fair treatment for downtrodden farmers. Prior to World War II, France had the largest agricultural sector of the great industrial nations, yet farmers had very little government representation and no protections against the hardships of the Depression. Government indifference to rural concerns soon led Henry Dorgéres to organize the Greenshirts, a peasant group with all the outer trappings of a fascist organization--colored shirts, insignia, sacred oaths, and salutes--but with a far different political agenda. Paxton, well known for his studies of Vichy France, does a fine job of chronicling the rise and fall of the Greenshirts as well as the social, economic, and political conditions that gave birth to the group.Read More

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  • Product Description

    French Peasant Fascism is the first account of the Greenshirts, a militant right-wing peasant movement in 1930s France that sought to transform the Republic into an authoritarian, agrarian state. Author Robert Paxton examines the Greenshirts in five case studies, throwing new light on French rural society and institutions during the Depression and on the emergence of a new rural leadership of authentic farmers. Paxton points out that fascism remained weak in the French countryside because the French state protected landowners more effectively than did those of Weimar Germany and Italy, and because French rural notables were so firmly embedded in social and economic power.

    Although the Greenshirts disappeared with the Third Republic, they left a double legacy: a tradition of peasant direct action, which is still exercised today; and the idea of France as a peasant nation, whose identity and virtues rest upon the persistence of a large peasant sector. That self-image continues to influence French policy choices today, long after the social structure on which it rested has disappeared.

  • 0195111893
  • 9780195111897
  • Robert O. Paxton
  • 23 October 1997
  • OUP USA
  • Paperback (Book)
  • 256
  • New e.
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