EMPIRE AND CULTURE: THE FRENCH EXPERIENCE, 1830-1940; ED. BY MARTIN EVANS

This volume explores how the idea of empire in France was expressed in film, photography, painting and monuments. It analyzes how the image of the universal, civilizing mission saturated French society during the first half of the twentieth century. In particular it examines how the subject peoples of the empire were represented in art and fiction. In this way, the authors underline that there was not just one single image of empire but many, ranging from the extreme right to the extreme left. The volume contains and in-depth consideration not just of the triumphalist images of empire but the oppositional ones, most notably the surrealists, which directly challenged the emergent colonial consensus. Cover......Page 1 Contents......Page 6 Preface......Page 8 Notes on the Contributors......Page 11 1 Culture and Empire, 1830–1962: An Overview......Page 14 Part 1 Film......Page 38 2 Poor Propaganda: French Colonial Films of the 1930s......Page 40 3 Un de la Légion: Myth Conception and Misconceptions......Page 54 Part II Photography......Page 68 4 Surrealism, Colonialism and Photography......Page 70 5 Documents against Civilization......Page 84 Part III Food, Music and Dance......Page 102 6 Indigestible Indo-China: Attempts to Introduce Vietnamese Food into France in the Interwar Period......Page 104 7 The ‘Ballet blanc et noir’: A Study of Racial and Cultural Identity during the 1931 International Colonial Exhibition......Page 116 8 ‘Frenchmen in Disguise’: French Musical Exoticism and Empire in the Nineteenth Century......Page 126 Part IV Promoting the French Empire......Page 142 9 Making Indo-China French: Promoting the Empire through Education......Page 144 10 The Empire and the Nation: The Place of Colonial Images in the Republican Visions of the French Nation......Page 161 11 Portrait of the Young Woman as a Coloniale......Page 174 12 ‘All the World’s a Stage’, Especially in the Colonies: L’Exposition de Hanoï, 1902–3......Page 194 Bibliography......Page 205 Index......Page 217 Annotation By 1931, the time of the huge Colonial Exhibition in Paris, France had the second largest empire in the world extending to the four corners of the globe. Yet, intriguingly the multi-various impact of the empire upon French culture and society has been largely ignored by historians. This volume aims to redress this balance and will explore how the idea of empire was expressed in film, photography, painting and monuments. It analyzes how the image of the universal, civilising mission saturated French society during the first half of the twentieth century. In particular it examines how the subject peoples of the empire were represented in art and fiction. In this way the volume underlines that there was not just one single image of empire but many ranging from the extreme right to the extreme left. It contains an in-depth consideration not just of the triumphalist images of empire but the oppositional ones, most notably the surrealists, which directly challenged the emergent colonial consensus On 6 May 1931 France's Colonial Exhibition finally opened at the Bois de Vincennes in Paris.