The Hollow Years: France in the 1930's - Hardcover

Weber, Eugen

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0393036715 ISBN 13: 9780393036718

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Co., 1995

Synopsis

Caught between the memory of a brutal war won at frightful cost and fear of another cataclysm, France in the 1930s suffered a failure of nerve. "The common sight of wheelchairs, crutches, empty sleeves dangling loosely or tucked into a jacket, had left the French with their fill of combat." Except against each other. Brilliantly chronicled here by a master historian, the 1930s could neither solve insoluble problems nor escape from them. It was not all bad, at least not at first. The First World War had paved the way for millions, men and women alike, out of farm or domestic service into more satisfying employment; more services now catered to middle- and working-class folk. There were fewer servants but more labor-saving devices; social legislation, modern conveniences, greater leisure, made life a little better. Yet publicity and press bred baffled aspirations, and change proved as threatening as inertia. The French entered the modern age kicking and screaming against its discomforts. When depression struck a brittle economy, new claimants to jobs outside the home saw meager wages dwindle like those of other workers. Some turned to prostitution to make ends meet or, in the Indian summer of French Catholicism, to God. The government tried deflation, which only made things worse. Competitive intellectual preening grew more vapid, competitive political aspersions more scurrilous. The general public grumbled, tightened belts, struck, rioted, and, when all else failed, rounded on immigrants: "unwanted strangers, intruders, parasites, speaking in strange accents and cooking with strange smells."

About this title

Review:

A deft and delightful book about a disastrous period of French history. . . . Sharp, witty, and wise commentary on French social and political life in the 1930s. . . . Mr. Weber's swift and shrewd narrative provides us with a brilliant panorama. --Stanley Hoffmann"

With the superb mastery of detail that we have come to expect from him, Weber makes the France of the 1920s and 1930s live before our eyes.--Peter Gay, Yale University

A brilliant survey of the key aspects of French life in the decade before the debacle . . . rendered in lighthearted, witty, but unfailingly perceptive commentary.--Fritz Stern

[An] arresting and readable portrait of the interwar years.

Couldn't be more timely. . . . Dazzling scholarship.

About the Author:

Author and narrator of the PBS program "The Western Tradition," Eugen Weber is the Joan Palevsky Professor of Modern European History at the University of California, Los Angeles.

About this edition

• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Co.
• Publication date: 1995
• ISBN 10: 0393036715
• ISBN 13: 9780393036718
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 364