WORLD WORLDWIDE EUROPE FRANCE - news journal UPDATE - (en) France, UCL AL #356 - Culture, Read Laurence de Cock: Father who is wrong, tell us a story! (ca, de, fr, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

 History belongs to these social sciences that are being constructed. It

does not constitute a neutral whole in itself. It is not a History, but
Histories. History is written, memory stone by memory stone, but memory
proves to be selective with its memory gaps, its omissions and its
distortions. ---- History is most often the saying of the Powerful. It
is the expression of domination. And, it must be recognized, it is not
the business of the Common People. History is created from ideological
postures, but History is said, is transmitted. Today, this is the whole
challenge of the national novel which, taking up the false ideas taught
by the Republic in need of history and conveyed in schools, has forged a
collective understanding that historians are unraveling. But the
construction proves to be firmly anchored and resists erosion.
Historical discourse is no longer a matter for specialists, but is
governed by its capacity to construct a set of so-called historical
landmarks for the greatest number. If History allows us to understand
the present time, it can also help us to misunderstand it. The challenge
of historical transmission, not based on clearly established facts,
consists of ideological fabrications to magnify the nation, the crucible
of the republic and nationalism.

With this book, Laurence De Cock offers us a wandering in national myths
in light of the most recent hypotheses and historical research. She
questions the origins of the nation France, travels through the History
of the Great and the revolts of the People of the Few to place the
forgotten actors and actresses at the heart of History. This French
people who are described as quarrelsome, eternally dissatisfied, a
people of strikes, revolts and revolutions, today, we want to unify them
in a historical fiction with clichés. This people that we are told is so
great, where is it in this lying narrative? It does not exist. It is. It
does. But it is not about it that we are told the story. How many adults
admit to discovering the Commune of 1871 that was never transmitted to
them? As for the Revolution, let's not talk about the Great Revolution.
If the history of workers is ignored or treated on the margins, what can
we say about the history of women. Here again, tutelary figures prevent
us from accounting for the realities of non-existence on the historical
level.

This book is ambitious in its desire to denounce the historical lies
that have been taught and that we intend to reactivate for the promotion
of ideological fictions, whether they were based on nationalism or in
the service of so-called revolutionary causes. The purpose of his work
is to put our diversities and our complementarities back at the center
of our histories.

With this Popular History of France, Laurence De Cock tries to help us
reclaim our stories, those of the Common People.

Dominique Sureau (UCL Angers)

Laurence De Cock, Popular History of France, Agone, 2024, 560 pages,
23.99 euros.

https://www.unioncommunistelibertaire.org/?Lire-Laurence-de-Cock-Pere-qu-a-tort-raconte-nous-une-histoire
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