Contenu du sommaire

The history of blood transfusion and medical research, Jean-François Picard, William H. Schneider. From the discovery of blood groups by Karl Landsteiner, a Viennese physician, to the "poisoned blood" affair linked to the AIDS virus, the history of blood transfusion follows the scientific, political and social changes of the 20th century in one of its major medical stakes. The progress of blood transfusion was linked to war periods, to institutional and political stakes, to the initiatives of a few individuals. It also led to the commercial deviation of the 1980s.

"The fist and the rose", the saga of a logo, Frédéric Cépède. Invented in 1969, taken up in a big way by the Socialist party born at the Epinay Convention in 1971, the emblem of the fist and the rose became the symbol of the history of François Mitterrand's new party. It represented the logo of the PS's electoral victories until 1981. Its phasing out and recent virtual disappearance illustrate the identity crisis that has marked the history of the Socialist party.

From 14 July 1919 to 11 November 1920. Death, where is your victory? Annette Becker. From 14 July 1919 to 11 November 1920, from the victory celebrations to the burial of an unknown soldier under the Arch of Triumph, the French and particularly Parisians lived in the posthumous cuit of World War soldiers. Far from unanimity, the national manifestations were criticized by various sectors of public opinion. Some groups organized their own competing or complementary ceremonies: the socialists around the cuit of Jaurès, the Catholics for the consecration of the Sacred Heart Basilica in Montmartre. Beyond intrinsic differences, each manifestation displayed a fervor born from and in the war, and welded by the millions of dead and wounded.

The high bench under Vichy, Alain Bancaud. Studying the judiciary under the Vichy regime makes it possible to understand its judicial policy, with inherited characteristics in its professional organization as well as innovations linked to the regime's ideology and to the German occupation. Judicial appointments and the judges' position with respect to the executive were complex and contradictory, combining dependence and distance vis-à-vis current events. The judiciary knows how to adapt to political events and lessen novelty so as to make it part of its own continuity. That is what judges call judicial independence from politics.

The purging of the Paris police, 1944-1945, Jean-Marc Berlière. The purging of the Paris police is said to have been accomplished, as a member of the High Court of Justice stated in 1946, «in a deplorable manner». It was violent, massive, expeditious and wanted by the Communists, despite General de Gaulle's wish of appeasement. The study of the Prefecture de Police archives provides, among other things, figures on an event which has left many painful memories.

Constructing the memory of the Vercors resistance. Commemoration and historiography, Gilles Vergnon. At the time of Liberation, the Vercors memorial consensus exalted the unity of the combatants, their heroism and their sacrifices for national liberation. The Cold War soon broke this irenic sentiment, and the drama of the Vercors plateau was instrumentalized by the French Communist Party in its fight against its Gaullist rival. After 1958, ecumenism got the upper hand again, despite some episodes, and the Vercors became a high place of Resistance memory.

"The War of the Captives" and associations of prisoner's wives in France, 1941-1945, Geneviève Dermenjian, Sarah Fishman. The analysis of a novel published in France in 1943, La guerre des captives (The War ofthe Captives), which highlighted the prisoners' wives, shows how closely literature follows reality. While very cautious ideologically, this work of propaganda for associations of prisoners' wives keeps close to the Catholic philosophy and to the Vichy regime.

A propos Keith Middlemas' trilogy: State and society in Great Britain since 1940, Jacques Leruez. The Second World War sealed a social consensus which lasted until 1961. Based on modernization, this compromise (illustrated by the Bevin-Churchill duet) gave birth to many reforms often inspired by Keynesian dogma. After 1961, however, the will to transform the country, based on an informal triple partnership (the state, trade unions, employers) failed and concertation proved its limits. The social peace wanted by Callaghan failed in the face of trade union intransigence, enabling Margaret Thatcher to gain power (1979). Getting rid of compromise, preferring confrontation to concertation, Mrs Thatcher, although lacking a definite program, destroyed the postwar consensus. The traditional forces then declined, trade unions in particular, and new logics won (competition, profit, etc.), ruining the traditional foundations of the state (the civic mind, the celebration of public service). Power in Great Britain cannot limit itself to state decisions. Spheres of influence (employers and the City) now play a decisive part.