Paris and the Spirit of 1919
Consumer Struggles, Transnationalism and Revolution

This history of Paris in 1919 explores the global implications of French political activism at the end of World War I.

Tyler Stovall (Author)

9781107521230, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 14 May 2015

356 pages, 22 b/w illus. 5 tables
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.9 cm, 0.48 kg

'This book is full of argument and richly evocative of a city remade by war and roiled by a hurricane of public protest, the likes of which it had not seen since the days of the Paris Commune.' Philip Nord, The Journal of Modern History

This transnational history of Paris in 1919 explores the global implications of the revolutionary crisis of French society at the end of World War I. As the site of the peace conference Paris was a victorious capital and a city at the center of the world, and Tyler Stovall explores these intersections of globalization and local revolution. The book takes as its central point the eruption of political activism in 1919, using the events of that year to illustrate broader tensions in working class, race, and gender politics in Parisian, French, and ultimately global society which fueled debates about colonial subjects and the empire. Viewing consumerism and consumer politics as key both to the revolutionary crisis and to new ideas about working-class identity, and arguing against the idea that consumerism depoliticized working people, this history of local labor movements is a study in the making of the modern world.

Introduction: a year like no other
1. The consumers' war
2. The working class of Paris: definitions and identities
3. Remaking the French working class: race, gender and exclusion
4. Spectacular politics
5. Consumer movements
6. Time, money, and revolution: the metalworkers' strike of June, 1919
Conclusion: legacies.

Subject Areas: 20th century history: c 1900 to c 2000 [HBLW], European history [HBJD]