The Village of Cannibals by Alain Corbin
In August 1870 in the French village of Hautefaye, a young nobleman, falsely accused of shouting republican slogans, was tortured for hours by a mob of peasants who later burned him alive. This book is a fascinating inquiry into the social and political ingredients of an alchemy that transformed ordinary people into brutal executioners.
A compelling study, The Village of Cannibals re-creates a world of pent-up rage and collective violence which, from the perspective of our own fin de siècle, seems distant in time alone-- Michael Burns * London Review of Books *
Alain Corbin has taken this atrocity and made it into a metaphor for the fragility of civilization. The book is a small masterpiece. * Virginia Quarterly Review *
Corbin traces this apparently unmotivated horror every which way, examines its details, seeks to explain its precedents, its unfolding, and its ‘reasons’ by reference to local conditions, crowd psychology, and historical circumstances. He does it with his usual acumen, cleverness, and style. It is a tour de force. -- Eugen Weber, author of My France
[The Village of Cannibals is] an excellent book that unites the best in the sensibility of the Annales to the traditions of histoire historisante, of history as it has classically been defined. This is disciplined and imaginative history. Corbin thinks innovatively, profoundly even, about the nature of the mob, its political and sociological situation, and about the political history of the region, its geography and its economy. He ranges back and forth through French history to explain a precise event; it is the interplay of scholarly presentation and imagination that makes this book so particularly taking. It is also very well composed and written. This is popularized scholarly history at its best. -- Patrice Higonnet, author of Sister Republics: The Origin of French and American Republicanism
Alain Corbin has taken this atrocity and made it into a metaphor for the fragility of civilization. The book is a small masterpiece. * Virginia Quarterly Review *
Corbin traces this apparently unmotivated horror every which way, examines its details, seeks to explain its precedents, its unfolding, and its ‘reasons’ by reference to local conditions, crowd psychology, and historical circumstances. He does it with his usual acumen, cleverness, and style. It is a tour de force. -- Eugen Weber, author of My France
[The Village of Cannibals is] an excellent book that unites the best in the sensibility of the Annales to the traditions of histoire historisante, of history as it has classically been defined. This is disciplined and imaginative history. Corbin thinks innovatively, profoundly even, about the nature of the mob, its political and sociological situation, and about the political history of the region, its geography and its economy. He ranges back and forth through French history to explain a precise event; it is the interplay of scholarly presentation and imagination that makes this book so particularly taking. It is also very well composed and written. This is popularized scholarly history at its best. -- Patrice Higonnet, author of Sister Republics: The Origin of French and American Republicanism
Alain Corbin is Professor of History, Emeritus, at the University of Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9780674939011 |
| ISBN 10 | 0674939018 |
| Title | The Village of Cannibals |
| Author | Alain Corbin |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Paperback |
| Publisher | Harvard University Press |
| Year published | 1993-10-15 |
| Number of pages | 172 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |