Histoire du temps présent: Between a National Perspective and International Openness
Histoire du temps présent ve Francii: Mezi národní perspektivou a mezinárodní otevřeností

Summary/Abstract: This article is a translation of “Histoire du Temps present in Frankreich: Zwischen nationalen Problemstellungen und internationaler Offnung,” which was published in Alexander Nutzenadel and Wolfgang Schieder (eds), Zeitgeschichte als Problem: Nationale Traditionen und Perspektiven der Forschung in Europa (Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2004, pp. 175–200). Soudobé dějiny is publishing it as part of a series of articles about the fi eld of contemporary history in Europe today. The article fi rst distinguishes between the terms histoire contemporaine and histoire du temps présent. The former is reserved for the period from the French Revolution or, sometimes, from the fall of Napoleon in 1815. The latter term is usually connected with the period from the beginning of the Second World War in September 1939. The establishment of the fi eld of contemporary history, the article argues, took place quite complicatedly and late compared to its counterpart in Germany. This was mainly because of the political situation in post-war France and also the state of the social sciences. Under the infl uence of Charles de Gaulle, the French national ethos after the war emphasized the anti-German resistance and suppressed the fact of collaboration, which resulted in highly selective, state-run research into history.

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