“... also thriving, even if it ‘has undoubtedly lost its way since it ceased to claim the values of Jaurès’. It’s not that people are forgetting, it’s just that some events, ‘far from being eminently forgettable, are so painful that attempts are made to repress them, attempts which, given their power and the interest of some parties in commemorating ...”

“... darkest hours. Yet he was prime minister for just 245 days. George Holoch’s fine translation of Jean Lacouture’s excellent journalistic biography is thus especially welcome. Mendès was born of a family of Portuguese Jews (the original name was Mendo Franca) who fled to France from the tortures of the Inquisition. His father, a travelling salesman and ...”

“... and his death in 1929. A second, more rewarding strategy in dealing with Clemenceau underpinned Jean-Baptiste Duroselle’s elephantine 1988 biography. Uncritically eulogistic, Duroselle’s magnum opus is distinctly heavy-going, but in small doses it is quite useful because minutely conversant with all of Clemenceau’s many interests – quite a feat ...”

“... Revolution some of the truly seminal minds of the first half of the 20th century. Aulard and Jaurès, Mathiez and Lefebvre, were intellectual giants by any reckoning, who pushed back the frontiers of knowledge about the Revolution with an industry, a passion and a conviction which transformed it into one of the most heavily-researched areas of our ...”

“... place had been turned into a movie set for a film on the Iranian Revolution.) Thanks to Chirac and Jean Tibéri, the mayor of the Fifth Arrondissement, who is today the new mayor of Paris, the rue Rollin has a new neo-medieval pavement and many new neo-18th-century, bronze-coloured lanterns. Quite a success really, and year after year, some Japanese film ...”

“... de la charité de Jeanne d’Arc and from his attack on the ‘socialist art’ advocated by Jaurès. Modernism, well under way before it, as is testified not only in the work of such big names as Trakl and Apollinaire, taken by the war in 1914 and 1918 respectively, but in that of such temporary talents as Gustav Sack and Hans Leybold, received from the ...”

“... with a section called ‘Biographical Notes’, should make the first entry read, ‘1905 21 June: Jean-Paul Sartre born in Paris’, and the last: ‘1980: Death of Sartre’. There are those for whom Simone de Beauvoir is important only because of her association with Sartre. Her four volumes of autobiography are sometimes seen merely as useful source ...”

“... François Ronald-Reagan. François Léon-Blum had disappeared; the influence of Lamartine and Jaurès had diminished dramatically; the man who had intended to destroy capitalism seemed intent on slaying the evil empire of socialism. His road to Damascus was via Silicon Valley. Naturally there is some exaggeration in this. Modernisation had always played a ...”