Latino Social Movements: Historical and Theoretical Perspectives Book

There are two stories of Alfred Dreyfus. One is the legal story of a young officer who, after a botched and corrupt investigation, was wrongly convicted of treason and imprisoned on Devil's Island, and of the attempts to correct a judicial error. The other is the story of a political and cultural conflict that divided France in the two implacably opposed camps of Dreyfusards and anti-Dreyfusards, often breaking earlier friendships and family ties. The two stories were necessarily connected, but also essentially different, as expressed by the Dreyfusard Clemencau when he blurted that he was indifferent about the person Dreyfus.

This is very much the history of the second story. Ruth Harris duly gives us a description of Dreyfus and his family, and their fate; but her real interest is for the two opposed groups of intellectuals, politicians and lawyers. They could be generalized as one camp that embraced the secular enlightenment values of the French Republic, motivated by absolute concepts of justice and fairness that were enshrined in the declaration of human rights. And one camp that instead extolled its emotional and cultural ties to the motherland, and the French army as symbol of an emotional and deeply felt patriotism. But as Harris shows, both groups had their own internal divisions and contradictions. Her book is devoted to making us understand the motivations and actions of both groups.

This may be history, but in many ways it feels very actual, applicable as it appears to be to the current political divisions in the USA. Is this history repeating itself, or the historian projecting her contemporary opinions on the past? It is hard to tell. A century is a long, and it is difficult today to really understand the motivations of people separated from us by two world wars. The attempt to do so does not entirely satisfy, but this book remains an excellent effort.