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I believe it was Clemens Heller, then director of the MSH, who after meeting Latour had the idea of putting him together with Bourdieu, thinking they could productively collaborate on the terrain of sociology of science. But this naturally leads us to pursue the same operation and turn sociology itself into an object of study of sociology, which leads us to a sociology of sociology, i.e. following the same logic, to subject sociology to a critical analysis to establish what makes it social and what makes it truly scientific. But we did slowly drift, without realizing it, from science as it was understood a century earlier, a science inherited from Pierre-Simon Laplace, to something that was probably closer to a science in the making, as was also made clear at the same time by the work of Isabelle Stengers, who was to accompany Bruno's thinking until the end. The passing of Bruno Latour has elicited a flood of tributes in France. [Extracted from the article]

Massenet's Hérodiade (1881) is today one of the lesser-known variations of the Salomé myth. Although based on Flaubert's Hérodias (1877) and written and premiered at the height of the narrative's popularity, the opera displays some peculiar deviations from both Flaubert's tale and other, especially fin-de-siècle , renderings of the myth. By situating Hérodiade 's departures from Flaubert's short story within both the framework of operatic conventions and the broader context of the opera's genesis, this article highlights Hérodiade 's status as a self-contained rendering, rather than a mere dramatic rewriting of the story—let alone an unfaithful adaptation. In doing so, three main elements that played an essential role in the process of (re)creation are brought to attention: the conventions of grand opera, Massenet's own aesthetics and interpretation of the tale, and the impact of the socio-political context of France's Third Republic on the opera's development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines doctors’ role in the spread of morphine addiction, or morphinomanie, in late nineteenth-century France and the impact of morphine’s use and abuse on medical professionalisation. Although in the 1860s and 1870s doctors had treated morphine as a sort of analgesic panacea, by the early 1880s they began to recognise morphine addiction as a serious social crisis. In a competitive medical marketplace, individual doctors used morphine’s analgesic power to enhance their own credibility in the eyes of their patients. However, this same substance also threatened the legitimacy of the medical profession, as doctors and patients alike succumbed to the new iatrogenic pathology of morphinomanie. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the fiscal policies instituted by France's Third Republic in the late nineteenth century. Taxation was increased to pay for public programs such as education and transportation. Topics considered include the historiography of taxation and the theories of sociologist Max Weber, state-building and war, French President Adolphe Thiers, nineteenth-century taxation and theories on income tax. A comparison of the tax systems of France, Great Britain, and the U.S. is presented.

This article examines the cultural identifications of doctors of French origin working for the colonial medical service in Algeria at the end of the nineteenth century. As representatives of the state, doctors were expected to uphold the gendered values of civilisation which underpinned the French Third Republic and its empire. Yet they also formed part of a mixed European settler community which insisted upon its own racial and cultural specificity. Faced with a series of centralising reforms to the service from 1878, doctors tied their pursuit of professional freedom to a wider settler movement for autonomy. In so doing, they came to embody a self-proclaimed 'new white race' which sought to physically regenerate the empire. In tracing these doctors' mediation between their governmental employers and their settler patients, this article exposes tensions within French medical culture in Algeria and reflects on the consequences for the operation of colonial power. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper offers a theory of military retrenchment by states in relative decline. I argue that a declining state will choose to withdraw foreign military deployments and security commitments when there exists a suitable regional 'successor' to which it can devolve its current responsibilities. The degree of a successor's suitability and the strategic importance of the region to the declining state interact to determine when and how rapidly retrenchment will occur. Importantly, this devolutionary model of retrenchment predicts significant variations in retrenchment patterns across a declining state's multiple regional commitments. It advances the literature by producing nuanced predictions of precisely where, when, and how quickly retrenchment will occur. This paper assesses the theory empirically through an examination of Great Britain's varying regional retrenchment strategies prior to World War I. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article the author examines the global ambitions of France between the restoration of Louis XVIII in 1814 and the fall of Napoleon III in 1870. The author characterizes this period as a high point in French imperialism. A number of topics are addressed including an examination of the formal and informal power of France between the fall of the house of Bourbon and the rise of the Third Republic, French imperialism between the 18th and 20th centuries, and the extent of French foreign trade and overseas investment.

Discusses the history of the Third Republic of France. Examination on the different schools of thought that attempted explain the political conditions and events that brought the creation of the Third Republic; Analysis on the political philosophy of Etienne Vacherot.

It has often been noted that Seurat’s early paintings and drawings downplay representation in favour of an increased attention to formal properties. What remains unexplored is how this quality can be understood in relation to the politics of the French Third Republic. This essay argues that Seurat’s early work was haunted by political events (most notably the Paris Commune), and by aspects of the artistic past (specifically the radical associations of naturalism) that many wished in the early 1880s to forget. With reference to the writings of Marx and Zola, each of whom offered perceptive diagnoses of the Third Republic’s uncertain relation to the past, I read Seurat’s depiction of the Tuileries Palace ruins and his series of stonebreaker images as reflections upon this crisis in historical memory. Whilst the repetitive weave of paint and conté crayon from which these images are constituted might seem to predict the emphasis on pictorial structure that characterized later forms of abstraction, it is argued here that in Seurat’s work it operates as a screen that occludes but at the same recalls repressed histories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Conflicts over cultural memory represent a significant stake in definitions of Frenchness advanced by opposing nationalist groups in the years before the First World War. The concept of a new ‘renaissance française’, broached by conservative critics and historians of art and literature often at odds with prevailing democratic republicanism, looked to the past to fashion a programme of renewal that challenged both the artistic vanguard and royalists’ advocacy of a Latinist classicism. This essay maps the social and cultural forces that shaped critics’ promotion of a new generation of artists credited with reinvigorating an indigenous tradition rooted in the Gothic and in a vernacular classicism associated with figures such as the Le Nains and Chardin. This loose grouping sought to reassert France’s cultural leadership in Europe under the aegis of a creative elite committed to the synthesis of the nation’s exceptional qualities embedded in its diverse, though complementary, artistic traditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]