Guthrie, Christopher E.

Dr. Christopher Guthrie is Professor of History at Tarleton State University. He received his Ph.D. in Modern French History from Northern Illinois University. Dr. Guthrie’s work has been published in journals such as World History: A Collection of Primary Sources (general editor and chief contributor), Proceedings of the Western Society of French History, Social Science Perspectives Journal, French History, and French Historical Studies.

Battle for the RÉpublique DÉmocratique Et Sociale in the Narbonnais, 1830-1875

2006 0-7734-5676-7
Between 1830 and 1875, the city of Narbonne and its hinterland would experience the growth of a bourgeois opposition movement during the July Monarchy, repeated confrontations between republicans and their opponents during the Second Republic, the creation of an organized popular republican movement during the Second Empire, and the eruption of the insurrectionary Commune of Narbonne during the spring of 1871. These episodes were not only marked by clashes between republicans and their adversaries but also by an ongoing debate within the republican movement itself over the precise meaning of its ideology, one that provoked an irreparable division among republicans by the time of the Commune. In particular, the development of the concept of the république démocratique et sociale among the popular class of the Narbonnais, a political ideal born of the concrete experiences of ordinary people during the Second Republic and Second Empire, would increasingly be at odds with the more moderate republicanism of their erstwhile social superiors and seriously divide the movement by the spring of 1871. The purpose of this book is to trace the trajectory of this long-term political evolution and explain why the Commune of Narbonne represented both its culmination and frustration.