Vichy's Afterlife

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 extremely difficult 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.