Justice in Lyon is a comprehensive history of the trial for crimes against humanity of the Nazi Klaus Barbie.
Richard J. Golsan Books
October 18, 1952
Richard J. Golsan is a distinguished professor whose scholarship delves into the literary, cinematic, and legal legacies of World War II in France, alongside themes of fascism and the political engagement of writers and intellectuals. His work critically examines how creators grappled with complicity and the intricate interplay between politics and artistic expression. Golsan's approach is characterized by sharp analysis, offering profound insights into the complex relationships between art, history, and societal shifts. Through his publications and teaching of French cinema, he provides readers and students with a rich understanding of pivotal moments in French cultural and intellectual history.
One of the distinctive features of the "Vichy Syndrome"?the persistence of the memory of the Vichy regime in French political and cultural life?is that it has been extremelyødifficult for an authoritative historical discourse to impose itself. Why does Vichy, and all that the name entails, fascinate and even obsess the French, inflecting not only discussions of the past but of the present as well? In Vichy's Afterlife, Richard J. Golsan explores the complexities of some of the most provocative episodes of Vichy's curious persistence in France's national consciousness. He argues that each of these episodes, events, and scandals constitutes a crossroads where history and "counterhistory"?different or competing versions of the past?encounter one another, often with explosive and even destructive consequences.
The book delves into the enduring effects of the Vichy regime and World War II on contemporary France, highlighting ongoing political and intellectual debates, legal trials, and historical controversies. It also explores literary responses to this tumultuous period, asserting that France has yet to achieve reconciliation with its past. Through this examination, the study reveals how collective memory continues to shape national identity and discourse in modern French society.
This study examines the continuing impact of the memory of the Vichy regime and World War II in France. It analyzes recent political and intellectual debates, trials and the passage of contentious laws, historical controversies, and literary works and argues that the country has not yet reconciled with its past.
The trial that never ends
- 272 pages
- 10 hours of reading
Cover -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction: Arendt in Jerusalem: The Eichmann Trial, the Banality of Evil, and the Meaning of Justice Fifty Years On -- 1 Judging the Past: The Eichmann Trial -- 2 Eichmann in Jerusalem: Conscience, Normality, and the "Rule of Narrative" -- 3 Banality, Again -- 4 Eichmann on the Stand: Self-Recognition and the Problem of Truth -- 5 Arendt's Conservatism and the Eichmann Judgment -- 6 Eichmann's Victims, Holocaust Historiography, and Victim Testimony -- 7 Truth and Judgment in Arendt's Writing -- 8 Arendt, German Law, and the Crime of Atrocity -- 9 Whose Trial? Adolf Eichmann's or Hannah Arendt's? The Eichmann Controversy Revisited -- Contributors -- Index