This landmark collection by an international group of scholars and public intellectuals represents a major reassessment of French colonial culture and how it continues to inform thinking about history, memory, and identity. This reexamination of French colonial culture, provides the basis for a revised understanding of its cultural, political, and social legacy and its lasting impact on postcolonial immigration, the treatment of ethnic minorities, and national identity.

The global legacy of French colonialism

Pascal Blanchard is a historian and researcher affiliated with the Laboratoire Communication et Politique (Paris, France, CNRS) and co-director of the Groupe de recherche ACHAC (colonialism, immigration, post-colonialism).

Sandrine Lemaire is a historian, enseignante-agrégée (France) and co-director of the Groupe de recherche ACHAC (colonialism, immigration, post-colonialism).

Nicolas Bancel is professor of politics and social sciences at the University of Lausanne (Switzerland) and co-director of the Groupe de recherche ACHAC (colonialism, immigration, post-colonialism).

Dominic Thomas is Madeleine L. Letessier Chair in French and Francophone studies at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Introduction: The Creation of a Colonial Culture in France, from the Colonial Era to the "Memory Wars"

Part I. The Creation of a Colonial Culture
Foreword: French Colonization: an Inaudible History

1. Anti-Slavery, Abolitionism, and Abolition in France from the End of the Eighteenth Century to the 1840s
2. Milestones in Colonial Culture under the Second Empire (1851-1870)
3. Exhibitions, Expositions, Media Coverage, and the Colonies (1870-1914)
4. Science, Scientists, and the Colonies (1870-1914)
5. Literature, Song, and the Colonies (1900-1920)
6. Entertainment, Theater, and the Colonies (1870-1914)
7. School, Pedagogy, and Colonies (1870-1914)
8. Dying: the Call of the Empire (1913-1918)

Part II. Conquering Public Opinion
Foreword: History's Mark (1931-1961)

9. Dreaming: the Fatal Attraction of Colonial Cinema (1920-1950)
10. Spreading the Word: the Agence Générale des Colonies (1920-1931)
11. To Civilize: the Invention of the Native (1918-1940)
12. Selling the Colonial Economic Myth (1900-1940)
13. The Athletic Exception: Black Champions and Colonial Culture (1900-1939)
14. The Colonial Bath: Sources of Popular Colonial Culture (1918-1931)
15. The Colonial Exposition (1931)
16. National Unity: the Right and Left "Meet" around the Colonial Exposition (1931)

Part III. The Apogee of Imperialism
Foreword: Images of an Empire's Demise

17. Colonizing, Educating, Guiding: A Republican Duty
18. Promotion: Creating the Colonial (1930-1940)
19. Influence: Cultural and Ideological Agendas (1920-1940)
20. Education: Becoming "Homo Imperialis" (1910-1940)
21. Manipulation: Conquering Taste (1931-1939)
22. Control: Paris, a Colonial Capital (1931-1939)
23. Imperial Revolution: Vichy's Colonial Myth (1940-1944)
24. Colonial Economy: Between Propaganda Myths and Economic Reality (1940-1955)
25. French Unity: The Dream of a United France (1946-1960)

Part IV. Toward the Postcolony
Foreword: Moussa the African's Blues

26. Decolonizing France: the "Indochinese Syndrome" (1946-1954)
27. Immigration: the Emergence of an African Elite in the Metropole (1946-1961) 28. Immigration: North Africans Settle in the Metropole (1946-1961)
29. Crime: Colonial Violence in the Metropole (1954-1961)
30. Modernism, Colonialism, and Cultural Hybridity
31. The Meanders of Colonial Memory
32. The Impossible Revision of France's History (1968-2006)
33. National History and Colonial History: Parallel Histories (1961-2006)
34.The Illusion of Decolonization (1956-2006)
35.The Impossible Colonial Museum

Part V. The Time of Inheritance
Foreword: The Age of Contempt, or the Legitimization of France's Civilizing Mission
36. Trouble in the Republic: Disturbing Memories, Forgotten Territories
37. Competition between Victims
38. The Army and the Construction of Immigration as a Threat (1961-2006)
39. Postcolonial Culture in the Army and the Memory of Overseas Combatants (1961-2006)
40. Republican Integration: Reflections on a Postcolonial Issue (1961-2006)
41. Colonial Influences and Tropes in the Field of Literature
42. From Colonial History to the Banlieues (1961-2006)
43. Can We Speak of A Postcolonial Racism? (1961-2006)
44. From Colonial Stereotypes to the Postcolonial Gaze: the Need for an Evolution of the Imaginary
45. Post Colonial Cinema, Song, and Literature: Continuity or Change? (1961-2006)
46. Ethnic Tourism: Symbolic Reconquest? (1961-2006)
47. Francophonie and Universality: the Evolution of Two Entangled Ideas (1961-2006)

Bibliography
Contributors
Index