Date of Award

2010

Document Type

Restricted Thesis

Terms of Use

© 2010 Philip Skorokhodov. All rights reserved. Access to this work is restricted to users within the Swarthmore College network and may only be used for non-commercial, educational, and research purposes. Sharing with users outside of the Swarthmore College network is expressly prohibited. For all other uses, including reproduction and distribution, please contact the copyright holder.

Degree Name

Bachelor of Arts

Department

History Department

First Advisor

Pieter M. Judson

Second Advisor

Robert Weinberg

Abstract

Skorokhodov explores how educators and politicians influenced the relationship between historiography and public policy in France after World War II during the postwar period (1946-2008). By examining high school textbooks and university academic publications, he argues that classroom materials both reflected and influenced the public recognition of French occupation by and collaboration with Nazi Germany under the Vichy France regime. In the 1940s and 1950s, a political atmosphere characterized by amnesia and denial led to repressed, incoherent accounts of the war within the classroom. But beginning in 1970, generational change, accurate and multi-dimensional high school textbooks, and increased academic publication and focus on Political History at the university level led to public acknowledgement of the painful truths of the war, and allowed the French to close a painful period of history.

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