Races on display : French representations of colonized peoples 1886-1940 / Dana S. Hale.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Hale, Dana S.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

International relations.

Indigenous peoples--Public opinion.

Indigenous peoples.

France--History--Third Republic, 1870-1940.

France.

History.

Indigenous peoples in literature.

Public opinion--France.

Public opinion.

France--Colonies--Africa.

Colonies.

Africa.

France--Colonies--Asia.

Asia.

France--Foreign relations--Africa.

France--Foreign relations--Asia.

Physical Description:

x, 215 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Bloomington : Indiana University Press, [2008]

Summary:

While European commerce in race was substantial, the colonial trade in ideas of race was highly profitable as well. Looking at official propaganda and commercial representations in France during the Third Republic, this book explores the way the French increased the value of their racial identity at home at the expense of their colonized brothers and sisters. The French did not create the identity-effacing stereotypes of Africans, Arabs, and Indochinese. Instead they refined or remolded these images, and as they did so they redefined and remolded their images of themselves. Focusing on world's fairs, colonial expositions, and mundane manufacturers' trademarks, Races on Display shows not only the prevalence of racial stereotypes, but also how complex these representations prove to be.

The book spans the period from the "scramble for Africa" in the mid-1880s to the fall of the Third Republic during World War II. The first half of the volume examines the commercial and official presentation of the three major colonial "races" from 1886 to 1913; the second considers the transformations in the French outlook on colonial subjects during World War I and in the years that proceeded the fall of the Republic in 1940. The display of the French "race" by the final decade of the Third Republic stressed cultural supremacy, modernization and technological achievement, responsibility for the advancement of other races, and fruitful cooperation with colonized peoples. Principles, the book suggests, that continue to frame the political and cultural interactions between France and the people of its former colonies.

Contents:

Part 1. On the path to civilization, 1886-1913

Overseas empire and race during the Third Republic

Sub-Saharan Africans: "uncivilized types"

North Africans: mysterious peoples

Indochinese: gentle subjects

Children of France, 1914-1940

Introduction to Part 2.

Sub-Saharan Africans: la force noire

North Africans: fils aîné

Indochinese: fils doué

La mère-patrie and her colonial children: France on display.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [181]-206) and index.

ISBN:

9780253348548

0253348544

9780253218995

0253218993

OCLC:

163708062