This volume about the Vichy years and the German Occupation of 1940-1944 uses as a starting point Robert Paxton's Vichy France: Old Guard and New Order, which provided a meticulously documented portrait of a nation consumed by indecision and self-doubt. The essays by the foremost scholars in the field place the Occupation of France in the context of other episodes in French history, and in the context of other occupied countries during World War II. They consider communities of belief during the Vichy years, examine how the experience of war and occupation shaped the everyday lives of people, and look at the ongoing reconstruction of the memory of the Vichy years.
This collection of essays takes up where Paxton left off and shows how the last twenty-five years of scholarship have made problematic the tidy categories used to describe behaviour during the Vichy years. The authors point to new directions in the field and address both the myth of the 'nation of forty million resisters' that Paxton demolished and the creation of a new myth -- that the French have failed or refused to confront their past.

At the end of World War II, the vast majority of people in France, living in small towns or rural areas, had suffered through a series of traumas-economic depression, war and occupation, the absence of millions of POWs, deportees and forced laborers, widespread destruction. The resulting disruptions continued to reverberate in families for several years after the Liberation. In the decades following the war, France experienced radical economic and social transformations, becoming an urban, industrial, affluent nation. In less than thirty years, French ideas about gender and family life underwent dramatic changes. This book provides a broad view of changing lives and ideas about love, courtship, marriage, giving birth, parenting, childhood, and adolescence in France from the Vichy regime to the sexual revolution of 1960s. To understand how such changes influenced ideas about family life, From Vichy to the Sexual Revolution explores inexpensive guide books on marriage, childbirth and parenting, advice columns and popular magazines directed at readers from a variety of backgrounds. Sarah Fishman puts these sources into context, by exploring juvenile court family case studies. She links economic and social changes to the evolution of thinking about gender, the self, and the family, throwing new light on the emergence of a new vision of the family, one based on dynamic relationships rather than a set structure.

The "Battle for Children" links two major areas of historical inquiry: crime and delinquency with war and social change. In a study based on impressive archival research, Sarah Fishman reveals the impact of the Vichy regime on one of history's most silent groups--children--and offers enlightening new information about the Vichy administration.

Fishman examines how French children experienced the events of war and the German occupation, demonstrating that economic deprivation, not family dislocation, sharply drove up juvenile crime rates. Wartime circumstances led authorities to view delinquent minors as victims, and provided the opportunity for reformers in psychiatry, social work, and law to fundamentally transform France's punitive juvenile justice system into a profoundly therapeutic one. Vichy-era legislation thus formed the foundation of the modern juvenile justice system in France, which rarely incarcerates delinquent youth.

In her examination of the critical but unexpected role the war and the authoritarian Vichy regime played in the transformation of France's juvenile courts and institutions, Fishman has enriched our knowledge of daily life in France during World War II, refined our understanding of Vichy's place in the historical development of France, and provided valuable insights into contemporary debates on juvenile justice.