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How do we make social democracy -- by seizing the unknown possibilities of the future, or by focussing our attention on the immediate present? Julian Wright examines French reformist and idealist socialism's fascination with modern history, using interlocking biographical essays to understand the timeframe of their social transformation.
List of contents
- Part 1: Introduction
- 1: Modern ideas of the present
- 2: Socialism and socialist intellectuals in French history
- Part 2: The present in the past: The Histoire socialiste and the socialist vision of time
- 3: Socialists and their history
- 4: Socialism and the flow of time in modernity
- Part 3: Intellectual biography and the socialist experience of time
- 5: Benoît Malon and André Léo: socialism and the harmonious present
- 6: Georges Renard: socialist idealism and intellectual commitment
- 7: Marcel Sembat and the daily life of socialism: between experience and enthusiasm
- 8: Léon Blum: in the present, for the future
- Conclusion
- Chronology
- Bibliography
About the author
Julian Wright is Professor of History and Head of Humanities at Northumbria University, having previously taught at Durham University and held a Junior Research Fellowship at Christ Church, Oxford. He is the author of The Regionalist Movement in France: Jean Charles-Brun and French Political Thought, also published by OUP. Julian is co-editor of the OUP journal French History and Musical Director of the Durham Singers. The completion of this book was made possible with a Leverhulme Research Fellowship in 2015-16.
Summary
How do we make social democracy -- by seizing the unknown possibilities of the future, or by focussing our attention on the immediate present? Julian Wright examines French reformist and idealist socialism's fascination with modern history, using interlocking biographical essays to understand the timeframe of their social transformation.
Additional text
[a] rich and thought-provoking study ... Above all, in foregrounding the left's relationship with ideas of time and history, Wright makes a persuasive case for re-assessing the significance of socialist thought during the French Third Republic.
