Title: Sons of the Revolution
First published: 1996
Description: With their dream of creating a republic that derived its legitimacy from the citizenry, the French Radical democrats, who saw themselves as the legitimate heirs of the 1789 and 1848 revolutions, formed the very heart of the political world of the Belle Epoque. Yet since the collapse of the Third Republic in 1940, their influence has steadily diminished and their flamboyant turn-of-the-century party leader, Camille Pelletan - wild haired, chronically rumpled, bombastic - is all but forgotten.

How did the Radicals, who in five decades went from a semilegal opposition group during the Second Empire to the largest political party in the Third Republic's Chamber of Deputies, end in obsolescence and defeat?

To answer this question, Judith F. Stone offers an original reassessment of radicalism and the political culture of the Third Republic, deftly analyzing its conflicting aspirations against a backdrop of class and gender conflict, an evolving constituency, and the birth of the career politician.

With insights drawn from contemporary cultural and political literature, Stone attributes the Republic's failure to the inability of the Radicals to speak for both the people and the nation. Nevertheless, she reminds us just what an audacious departure it was to establish a republic in a major European state; because of the Radical democrats, a much broader range of educated bourgeois men - not simply aristocrats and haute bourgeoisie - had access to political power.
Subjects: Biography, France, France. Assemblée nationale (1871-1942), History, Influence, Legislators, Republicanism, France, assemblee nationale, 1871-1942, France, history, third republic, 1870-1940, Republicanism, france
Places: France
People: Camille Pelletan (1846-1915)
Time periods: 19th century, Third Republic, 1870-1940
LC classification: DC342.8.P35 S76 1996