French Revolutionary Syndicalism and the Public Sphere

Combines social (Habermas) and cultural theory with history of major union in early twentieth-century France.

Kenneth H. Tucker (Author)

9780521021449, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 20 October 2005

296 pages
22.9 x 15 x 1.8 cm, 0.445 kg

"...a sensitive readeing of an historical case used to motivate a critical but sympathetic critique of contemporary social theory, and particularly the work of Habermas." Christopher K. Ansell, Social Forces

This study explores the evolution of the Confédération Générale du Travail (CGT), and its interaction with the French public sphere, between 1900 and 1920. Kenneth Tucker examines the triumph of this productivism and instrumental rationality, in contrast with other visions of society and the future. He gives a Habermasian twist to the recent linguistic turn in labour history, focusing on the role of competing bodies of knowledge in influencing the self-understanding and strategies of the CGT. He also goes further to situate the rise of productivism within the social and cultural context of the French Third Republic.

Acknowledgements
Introduction: Prologue
1. The Belle Epoque and revolutionary syndicalism
Part I. Reconfiguring the Language of Labour: The Advantages and Limitations of a Habermasian Historical Sociology: 2. Syndicalism, the New Orthodoxy and the postmodern turn
3. Public discourse and civil society: Habermas, Bourdieu and the new social movements
Part II. Visions of Modernity in the Liberal and Proletarian Public Spheres: Positivism, Republicanism and Social Science: 4. The liberal and proletarian public spheres in nineteenth-century France
5. The fin-de-siècle public sphere, the academic field and the social sciences
Part III. Exploring Revolutionary Syndicalism: 6. Pelloutier, Sorel and revolutionary syndicalism
7. Reformulating revolutionary syndicalism
8. Toward a new public sphere: Taylorism, consumerism and the postwar CGT
Conclusion: 9. The legacy of syndicalism
Notes
Index.

Subject Areas: Cultural studies [JFC]