Synopses & Reviews
This book offers the first comprehensive study of "sites of memory" in France connected to the history of French imperialism and colonialism, and the ways that the French have remembered or forgotten their colonial past. Through a study of monuments, museum collections and other "sites of memory" this book analyzes the way in which French authorities marked the Paris and provincial landscapes with these reminders of France's colonial "mission", the fate of these sites in the post-colonial period, and what that evolution reveals about French memory of the colonial epoch.
About the Author
Robert Aldrich is Lecturer in Modern French History and Colonial History at the University of Sydney. He is the author of
The French in the South Pacific, 1840-1940,
France and the South Pacific since 1940,
Greater France: A History of French Overseas Expansion and
Colonialism and Homosexuality.
Table of Contents
Introduction: Sites of Colonial Memory * The Colonies in Paris * The Colonies in the Provinces * Colonial War Memorials * Of Men and Monuments * The Colonies in Museums * The Colonial Legacy of Non-Western Art in French Museums * Temporary Exhibitions, Changing Perspectives * Conclusion: The Future of the Colonial Past * Bibliography