Oxford
University Press has published a new book which deals i.a. with the process of
Alsace’s legal and institutional re-integration in France during the
Interbellum.
ABOUT THE BOOK
In 1918, the end
of the First World War triggered the return of Alsace and Lorraine to France
after almost fifty years of annexation into the German Empire. Enthusiastic
crowds in Paris and Alsace celebrated the return of the 'lost provinces,' but
return proved far more difficult than expected. Over the following two decades,
politicians, administrators, industrialists, cultural elites, and others
grappled with the question of how to make the region French again. Differences
of opinion emerged, and reintegration rapidly descended into a multi-faceted
struggle as voices at the Parisian centre, the Alsatian periphery, and outside
France's borders offered their views on how to introduce French institutions
and systems into its lost borderland. Throughout these discussions, the border
itself shaped the process of reintegration, by generating contact and tensions
between populations on the two sides of the boundary line, and by shaping expectations
of what it meant to be French and Alsatian.
Borderland is the first comprehensive account of the return of
Alsace to France which treats the border as a driver of change. It draws upon
national, regional, and local archives to follow the difficult process of
Alsace's reintegration into French society, culture, political and economic
systems, and legislative and administrative institutions. It connects the
microhistory of the region with the "macro" levels of national
policy, international relations, and transnational networks, and with the
cross-border flows of ideas, goods, people, and cultural products that shaped
daily life in Alsace as its population grappled with the meaning of return to
France. In revealing the multiple voices who contributed to the region's
reintegration, it underlines the ways in which regional populations and
cross-border interactions have forged modern nations.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Alison Carrol is
Senior Lecturer in European History at Brunel University, London. She has published
on questions of borders and integration in modern French history, and in 2010
she was awarded the Etienne Baluze prize in European local history. This is her
first book.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction
1. A Bridge Across the Rhine
2. Remaking French Alsace: Citizenship, Administration, and Laws
3. Borderland Politics
4. Economic Reintegration
5. Reimagining Alsatian Culture
6. The Border Landscape
Conclusion
