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The Hollow Years
Caught between the memory of a brutal war won at frightful cost and fear of another cataclysm, France in the 1930s suffered a failure of nerve. "The common sight of wheelchairs, crutches, empty sleeves dangling loosely or tucked into a jacket, had left the French with their fill of combat." Except against each other. Brilliantly chronicled here by a master historian, the 1930s could neither solve insoluble problems nor escape from them. It was not all bad, at least not at first. The First World War had paved the way for millions, men and women alike, out of farm or domestic service into more satisfying employment; more services now catered to middle- and working-class folk. There were fewer servants but more labor-saving devices; social legislation, modern conveniences, greater leisure, made life a little better. Yet publicity and press bred baffled aspirations, and change proved as threatening as inertia. The French entered the modern age kicking and screaming against its discomforts. When depression struck a brittle economy, new claimants to jobs outside the home saw meager wages dwindle like those of other workers. Some turned to prostitution to make ends meet or, in the Indian summer of French Catholicism, to God. The government tried deflation, which only made things worse. Competitive intellectual preening grew more vapid, competitive political aspersions more scurrilous. The general public grumbled, tightened belts, struck, rioted, and, when all else failed, rounded on immigrants: "unwanted strangers, intruders, parasites, speaking in strange accents and cooking with strange smells."
364 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1995
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August 8, 2012
Eugen Weber. The Hollow Years: France in the 1930s. New York & London: W.W. Norton, 1994.
By the time he wrote this book, Eugen Weber had already established himself as a premier historian of France and of modern Europe in general. Particularly his book Peasants into Frenchmen: The Modernization of Rural France, 1870-1914 was already an example of a seminal work which challenged established scholarship and set new standards for research. He had also participated in the establishment of the Journal of Contemporary History and had written extensively on Fascism and the far right in France and elsewhere. He didn’t need to write this book to secure tenure, to build up a CV or to prove himself to much of anyone, so it can be assumed he wrote it because it is what he wanted to do.
It’s interesting, then, that what he produced is a detailed study of France’s “Weimar” period (it’s hard for me as a Germanist not to make comparisons with what is more familiar to me). One doesn’t get the impression that this would be a “fun” subject for a French historian. At least as portrayed by Weber, this is a period in which the French were ashamed to be French, and a period which any modern Frenchman or Francophile should be ashamed of in retrospect. The French lived in terror of a war which they knew was coming, and refused to prepare for it or act to defend themselves, except through acts of cowardice. Internally, they divided against themselves and squabbled over minor points, allowing even moments of national success (like the 1937 Paris Exhibition) to become occasions for foot-dragging and argument. Unlike Germany at the time, which was also chaotic and divided, France seems to have produced little culture of interest during the time – Weber allows for “Grand Illusion,” but isn’t even especially impressed with the rest of Renoir’s work.
In line with his thesis in Peasants into Frenchmen: The Modernization of Rural France, 1870-1914, Weber also finds much of the country backwards, agrarian, superstitious, resistant to change. The Catholic Church is a particular target – apparently nuns were still being told that bathing was an act of sensuous perversion, and so went around in filthy conditions of hygiene. The government and military fare little better, as we learn that the cavalry continued to insist up to the moment of the invasion that horses would always be superior to tanks on the battlefield (but failed to stockpile sufficient anti-tank weapons to prove it).
For me, the most interesting section was the description of the Popular Front period, when the forces of the left and traditional liberalism briefly were able to run the country, and some small degree of pride in France emerged on that side of the political spectrum. In Weber’s hands, however, it emerges as a period of dilettantism and uncertainty, with the Left unable even to agree to support Republican efforts in neighboring Spain while Germany and Italy guarantee the success of Franco’s rightist forces. Apparently the major “success” of this time was the introduction of holidays with pay, and the subsequent overcrowding of the beaches with workers on holiday.
It’s possible that Weber’s perspective is overly grim, or politically biased. It would be hard for me to judge without being more broadly familiar with the historiography of the time and place. The prose is readable and entertaining, and the research is strong, with a wide variety of sources consulted. There are rather more published sources used than one might expect, although the archives are by no means neglected. Weber’s narrative is clean and easy to follow. He ends the story (of course) with the invasion of France by Germany and he allows the Germans to have the last word with two reports of French military weakness written by the occupiers after the defeat appearing as appendices to the text.
By the time he wrote this book, Eugen Weber had already established himself as a premier historian of France and of modern Europe in general. Particularly his book Peasants into Frenchmen: The Modernization of Rural France, 1870-1914 was already an example of a seminal work which challenged established scholarship and set new standards for research. He had also participated in the establishment of the Journal of Contemporary History and had written extensively on Fascism and the far right in France and elsewhere. He didn’t need to write this book to secure tenure, to build up a CV or to prove himself to much of anyone, so it can be assumed he wrote it because it is what he wanted to do.
It’s interesting, then, that what he produced is a detailed study of France’s “Weimar” period (it’s hard for me as a Germanist not to make comparisons with what is more familiar to me). One doesn’t get the impression that this would be a “fun” subject for a French historian. At least as portrayed by Weber, this is a period in which the French were ashamed to be French, and a period which any modern Frenchman or Francophile should be ashamed of in retrospect. The French lived in terror of a war which they knew was coming, and refused to prepare for it or act to defend themselves, except through acts of cowardice. Internally, they divided against themselves and squabbled over minor points, allowing even moments of national success (like the 1937 Paris Exhibition) to become occasions for foot-dragging and argument. Unlike Germany at the time, which was also chaotic and divided, France seems to have produced little culture of interest during the time – Weber allows for “Grand Illusion,” but isn’t even especially impressed with the rest of Renoir’s work.
In line with his thesis in Peasants into Frenchmen: The Modernization of Rural France, 1870-1914, Weber also finds much of the country backwards, agrarian, superstitious, resistant to change. The Catholic Church is a particular target – apparently nuns were still being told that bathing was an act of sensuous perversion, and so went around in filthy conditions of hygiene. The government and military fare little better, as we learn that the cavalry continued to insist up to the moment of the invasion that horses would always be superior to tanks on the battlefield (but failed to stockpile sufficient anti-tank weapons to prove it).
For me, the most interesting section was the description of the Popular Front period, when the forces of the left and traditional liberalism briefly were able to run the country, and some small degree of pride in France emerged on that side of the political spectrum. In Weber’s hands, however, it emerges as a period of dilettantism and uncertainty, with the Left unable even to agree to support Republican efforts in neighboring Spain while Germany and Italy guarantee the success of Franco’s rightist forces. Apparently the major “success” of this time was the introduction of holidays with pay, and the subsequent overcrowding of the beaches with workers on holiday.
It’s possible that Weber’s perspective is overly grim, or politically biased. It would be hard for me to judge without being more broadly familiar with the historiography of the time and place. The prose is readable and entertaining, and the research is strong, with a wide variety of sources consulted. There are rather more published sources used than one might expect, although the archives are by no means neglected. Weber’s narrative is clean and easy to follow. He ends the story (of course) with the invasion of France by Germany and he allows the Germans to have the last word with two reports of French military weakness written by the occupiers after the defeat appearing as appendices to the text.
June 29, 2024
If the story of the 1920s is economic boom and social transformation (at least in America and western Europe), the 1930s have a more somber tale to tell: economic disaster, social and political fragmentation, and the drumbeat of fascism (actual or attempted) sounding around the world.
France serves as an example of all of this in one nation, as The Hollow Years chronicles in ten chapters filled with foreboding and gloom. The book leads us thematically through each year of that most unhappy decade, approaching the subject via politics, economics, business, religion, culture (high and low), and sociology.
It's hard to overemphasize the hole World War I left in the heart of France. The French supposed "victors" (if it's possible to say that anyone "won" that four-year fit of insanity) found the entire northern third of their nation plowed into mud and rubble when the guns at last stopped. France was essentially bankrupt. An entire generation of men in their most productive years had been slaughtered for no apparent gain. The impact of this single fact is astounding: by 1930, there were a million more French women between the ages of 18 and 40 than there were men of the same age out of a total population of 40.6 million. (Between 1870 and 1910, the country added a steady 500-700,000 bébés per decade. The population fell by 1.8 million between 1910 and 1920.) Because the powers that were refused to grant women full employment rights, this contraction and the ensuing baby bust led to a chronic labor shortage that hobbled France's economy and recovery all the way into the Great War's sequel.
Other nations (including France's allies) used the post-WWI boom to push along the rapid development of their economies, leading to galloping urbanization and rising industrial strength. France--which didn't have the workers, money, or resolution to do the same--largely stagnated through the '20s and '30s.
When we think of France during that time, we think of urbane, sophisticated Paris, the glittering City of Light. However, you didn't have to roam very far outside the Paris city limits to find no paved roads, no electricity, no phones, no running water, no bathtubs, and a way of life that hadn't advanced much from the early 19th century. Women didn't get the vote until 1944 (and couldn't use it until 1947). Healthcare was more a concept than an actuality for most of the population. The loss of young men drained the countryside of farm workers, and the people's xenophobia blocked the kind of wholesale immigration that might have fixed the problem. This was the metropole until the 1950s (in some cases, the 1970s).
If France had stable, dynamic governments during the '30s, they might have been able to pull a French New Deal to arrest the economy's collapse and the government's slow decomposition. Alas, a revolving door of feckless administrations on both ends of the political spectrum did little more than block each other's ability to get anything done. Ennui took hold of the ruling class, the populace, the military, the Church, and most everyone else. When World War II finally appears in Chapter 10, it comes as an inevitability: there was no other way change could come to France, because it had lost the energy and the will to bring it about itself.
The author appears to have a firm and deep understanding of the mind and soul of France during these troubled years. His prose is usually clear and often engaging (at least, by the standards of what is, at bottom, a textbook). Be prepared for a hailstorm of names and places. This book suffers from a typical shortage of time markers (sometimes pages go by without a mention of the year in question), made up for by extensive end notes and a thorough index (not always a given). There are also more pictures than usual (always welcome), though in the paperback, the reproduction isn't great.
The Hollow Years will guide you with a firm authorial hand through the 1930s, perhaps the worst peacetime decade in France's post-revolutionary history. Don't expect good news or a happy ending; there isn't any. You will understand the definition of the word ennui before you're halfway through. But by the end, you'll have a firm grasp on how thin was France's veneer of modernity in the '30s and why the nation performed so poorly when the Wehrmacht came calling in 1940.
France serves as an example of all of this in one nation, as The Hollow Years chronicles in ten chapters filled with foreboding and gloom. The book leads us thematically through each year of that most unhappy decade, approaching the subject via politics, economics, business, religion, culture (high and low), and sociology.
It's hard to overemphasize the hole World War I left in the heart of France. The French supposed "victors" (if it's possible to say that anyone "won" that four-year fit of insanity) found the entire northern third of their nation plowed into mud and rubble when the guns at last stopped. France was essentially bankrupt. An entire generation of men in their most productive years had been slaughtered for no apparent gain. The impact of this single fact is astounding: by 1930, there were a million more French women between the ages of 18 and 40 than there were men of the same age out of a total population of 40.6 million. (Between 1870 and 1910, the country added a steady 500-700,000 bébés per decade. The population fell by 1.8 million between 1910 and 1920.) Because the powers that were refused to grant women full employment rights, this contraction and the ensuing baby bust led to a chronic labor shortage that hobbled France's economy and recovery all the way into the Great War's sequel.
Other nations (including France's allies) used the post-WWI boom to push along the rapid development of their economies, leading to galloping urbanization and rising industrial strength. France--which didn't have the workers, money, or resolution to do the same--largely stagnated through the '20s and '30s.
When we think of France during that time, we think of urbane, sophisticated Paris, the glittering City of Light. However, you didn't have to roam very far outside the Paris city limits to find no paved roads, no electricity, no phones, no running water, no bathtubs, and a way of life that hadn't advanced much from the early 19th century. Women didn't get the vote until 1944 (and couldn't use it until 1947). Healthcare was more a concept than an actuality for most of the population. The loss of young men drained the countryside of farm workers, and the people's xenophobia blocked the kind of wholesale immigration that might have fixed the problem. This was the metropole until the 1950s (in some cases, the 1970s).
If France had stable, dynamic governments during the '30s, they might have been able to pull a French New Deal to arrest the economy's collapse and the government's slow decomposition. Alas, a revolving door of feckless administrations on both ends of the political spectrum did little more than block each other's ability to get anything done. Ennui took hold of the ruling class, the populace, the military, the Church, and most everyone else. When World War II finally appears in Chapter 10, it comes as an inevitability: there was no other way change could come to France, because it had lost the energy and the will to bring it about itself.
The author appears to have a firm and deep understanding of the mind and soul of France during these troubled years. His prose is usually clear and often engaging (at least, by the standards of what is, at bottom, a textbook). Be prepared for a hailstorm of names and places. This book suffers from a typical shortage of time markers (sometimes pages go by without a mention of the year in question), made up for by extensive end notes and a thorough index (not always a given). There are also more pictures than usual (always welcome), though in the paperback, the reproduction isn't great.
The Hollow Years will guide you with a firm authorial hand through the 1930s, perhaps the worst peacetime decade in France's post-revolutionary history. Don't expect good news or a happy ending; there isn't any. You will understand the definition of the word ennui before you're halfway through. But by the end, you'll have a firm grasp on how thin was France's veneer of modernity in the '30s and why the nation performed so poorly when the Wehrmacht came calling in 1940.
April 6, 2024
Ég hafði mikið fyrir að ná í þessa bók, fékk hana á millisafnaláni og sótti alla leið vestur í bæ. Mér fannst ég enda þurfa að setja mig betur inn í menningarlega- og pólitíska stemningu í Frakklandi fjórða áratugarins, það var einfaldlega kominn tími til. Og hún lofaði góðu í byrjun, tók fyrir friðarhreyfinguna og ástæður hennar á ansi sannfærandi hátt, en svo náði hún sér ekki almennilega á flug eftir það, átti áhugaverða spretti vissulega, en margt inn á milli pirraði mig.
Weber gerir alltof oft ráð fyrir mikilli forþekkingu á tímabilinu með innihaldslausu namedroppi trekk í trekk, ég var að googla nöfn hægri-vinstri meðan ég las bókina. Hann fellir einnig oft dóma um menn og málefni án þess að færa nokkur rök fyrir máli sínu (af hverju er André Tardieu séní?) og virkar stundum svo asnalega dómharður og gildishlaðinn að mér finnst hallærislegt að lesa. Þá er bókin ekki byggð með sterkum tímaramma lesandanum til halds og trausts, heldur skautar frá einu tímabili til annars og til baka. Mig langaði að fræðast um baktjaldmakk í pólitík og kynnast stærstu nöfnunum betur, en það var lítið bitastætt um þau mál.
Nú er Frakkland í eðli sínu ótrúlega áhugavert, en hér er bara ekki nógu vel farið með gott efni.
Weber gerir alltof oft ráð fyrir mikilli forþekkingu á tímabilinu með innihaldslausu namedroppi trekk í trekk, ég var að googla nöfn hægri-vinstri meðan ég las bókina. Hann fellir einnig oft dóma um menn og málefni án þess að færa nokkur rök fyrir máli sínu (af hverju er André Tardieu séní?) og virkar stundum svo asnalega dómharður og gildishlaðinn að mér finnst hallærislegt að lesa. Þá er bókin ekki byggð með sterkum tímaramma lesandanum til halds og trausts, heldur skautar frá einu tímabili til annars og til baka. Mig langaði að fræðast um baktjaldmakk í pólitík og kynnast stærstu nöfnunum betur, en það var lítið bitastætt um þau mál.
Nú er Frakkland í eðli sínu ótrúlega áhugavert, en hér er bara ekki nógu vel farið með gott efni.
January 10, 2016
The late UCLA professor Eugen Weber is probably more familiar from his series of television lectures on the history of Europe than from his books. However, this history of France in the 1930s is an amazingly good read, albeit a sad one for Francophiles who know what happened in June 1940. The range of Weber's study, the wonderfully telling facts he uncovers, and his lively prose are sure to be of interest to any student of history, particularly those interested in modern France.
January 30, 2022
Weber examines the politics, economy, and culture of France in the 1930s to explain the weaknesses in society that led to France's catastrophic defeat in 1940. Weber's thoroughness allows him to track the rot that led many French people to believe that defeat was inevitable, better than another war, and perhaps even deserved.
September 13, 2024
I recognize the significance of this text given its lesser-discussed historical coverage but damn, was it messy. This isn't a book you can go into blind; you should already have a good grasp on France politics, culture, military history, etc in order to really get anything out of Weber's work.
December 11, 2016
This was part of my reading list about France in the Second World War. Weber paints a devastating picture of how France fell aprt from within during the 1930s. The nation was divided along politcial and cultural lines, and also suffered from insipid leadership. I would recommend this to anyone interested in France and the Second World War.
March 12, 2012
The behavior of France in World War II always perplexed me. It appeared the French simply said, "C'est la vie", and all but invited the Germans to walk right on in without much of a fight. It has forever tainted France, to the point where I have travelled worldwide and have heard jokes about the lack of resolve for Frenchmen.
Yet, for almost 120 years, France was a mighty war power. Napoleon set in bootprints the path his countrymen would take, and it carried into the mid-nineteenth century where France was considered the greatest military power on the continent (not the Brits, who focused on industry and empire consolidation). Mon dieu, what happened?
The Crimean War happened. The Franco-Prussian War happened. World War I happened. By the time the 1930s came around, France had enough of war and the senseless slaughter of seemingly every other generation of young men. While this doesn't excuse their limp response to Hitler, it does explain the background leading to the beginning of WWII.
Eugen Weber does a good job of understanding that the basic reader will be opening the book with the same question I had, and he takes the reader briskly through history and the results. Still, the results leave one saddened...Great Britain also had the disastrous Crimean War and the Boer War, plus the generation lost in the Great War. Yet, the Brits never gave up, even with the bombing that cost them more civilian lives than the French endured from the Nazis.
So, perhaps, in the end, one thinks that maybe the backbone of a nation is its leaders...England had Churchill and the good fortune to have a King whose brother might have brought the nation to surrender. France had destroyed its monarchy long ago and seemingly any sense of leadership. Maybe it's easy for me to sit back and decide what history should have been without having experienced the trauma preceding the fact. Still, it doesn't excuse the Vichy Regime and the handing over of France's Jewish population.
For shame, my father's people, for shame.
Book Season = Spring (April in Paris might help)
Yet, for almost 120 years, France was a mighty war power. Napoleon set in bootprints the path his countrymen would take, and it carried into the mid-nineteenth century where France was considered the greatest military power on the continent (not the Brits, who focused on industry and empire consolidation). Mon dieu, what happened?
The Crimean War happened. The Franco-Prussian War happened. World War I happened. By the time the 1930s came around, France had enough of war and the senseless slaughter of seemingly every other generation of young men. While this doesn't excuse their limp response to Hitler, it does explain the background leading to the beginning of WWII.
Eugen Weber does a good job of understanding that the basic reader will be opening the book with the same question I had, and he takes the reader briskly through history and the results. Still, the results leave one saddened...Great Britain also had the disastrous Crimean War and the Boer War, plus the generation lost in the Great War. Yet, the Brits never gave up, even with the bombing that cost them more civilian lives than the French endured from the Nazis.
So, perhaps, in the end, one thinks that maybe the backbone of a nation is its leaders...England had Churchill and the good fortune to have a King whose brother might have brought the nation to surrender. France had destroyed its monarchy long ago and seemingly any sense of leadership. Maybe it's easy for me to sit back and decide what history should have been without having experienced the trauma preceding the fact. Still, it doesn't excuse the Vichy Regime and the handing over of France's Jewish population.
For shame, my father's people, for shame.
Book Season = Spring (April in Paris might help)
May 13, 2014
Oh, boy. this was a depressing and deflating read. I had earlier read Weber's "Fin de Siecle,"but was unprepared for his rather devastating assessment in the years between the First and Second World Wars.
I suppose the only word that fits is "feckless.," as regards the French.
This book puts all in perspective -- depressingly so.
I suppose the only word that fits is "feckless.," as regards the French.
This book puts all in perspective -- depressingly so.
April 13, 2007
Excellent background as to France's collapse in 1941.
January 2, 2013
Yes, finally. It was a dense, impressive historical work in the annals tradition. The spirit of Marc Bloch is always with Eugen Weber.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews