The Divided Path
The German Influence on Social Reform in France After 1870
By Allan Mitchell
432 pp., 6 x 9
-
Paperback ISBN: 978-0-8078-5743-4
Published: September 2010 -
E-book EPUB ISBN: 978-1-4696-3969-7
Published: February 2018 -
E-book PDF ISBN: 979-8-8908-8681-1
Published: February 2018
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- Paperback $60.00
- E-Book $39.99
Mitchell's carefully researched study investigates a number of specific issues that remain of direct relevance today, such as gender relationships, health care (including the treatments and prevention of infectious disease), labor conflicts, taxation policy, social security measures, and international tensions on the eve of a major war. He shows that certain key problems of public health and welfare found different solutions in France and Germany, and he explains why the differences emerged and how they defined the two major competitors of continental Europe. The nineteenth-century epidemic of tuberculosis provides a case in point: the German state intervened to combat the dreaded disease with vigorous measures of public hygiene and popular sanatoria, but the French republic moved more cautiously to limit interference in the private sphere, even though laissez faire often meant laissez mourir.
Mitchell's book is the first full-scale study of French social reform after 1870 that is based on documentation in both France and Germany. The first hesitant steps of the French welfare state are thrown into sharp relief by comparison with developments in Germany. No other work on modern France presents such a broad panorama of social reform, and none draws together such a rich tableau of telling detail about the development of the French health and welfare system after 1870.
In a lucid conclusion, Mitchell places this story in the general context of his three volumes, thereby offering a summary of the Franco-German encounter that has come to dominate the history of Europe in the twentieth century.
Originally published in 1991.
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About the Author
Allan Mitchell's previous books include The German Influence in France after 1870: The Formation of the French Republic and Victors and Vanquished: The German Influence on Army and Church in France after 1870.
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