French and Belgian Political Ideas in Wartime Britain, 1940-1944
This is the first comprehensive intellectual history on the wartime writings of four French and Belgian exiles in Great Britain (1940-1944). Part I studies the French scholar Raymond Aron and the French journalist Maurice Schumann, while Part II studies the Belgian politicians Louis de Brouckère and Robert Gillon. Eighty years after the Second World War, this thesis examines their proposed political reforms for an imaginary post-war France and Belgium. Analysing mostly unknown articles published in the London press and archival material, it shows that the written contributions of these exiles were intellectually meaningful, and not simply propaganda or the product of émigrés rivalries. Moreover, it demonstrates that their written contributions were made in a context of transnational interactions with fellow European exiles in Britain and with their British hosts. These thinkers engaged with multiple national communities through informal networks, cultural events, political parties, periodicals, working groups, and religious associations. Put together, their dispersed writings amount to coherent visions on the institutional form of democracy, the role of monarchy, electoral procedures, the renewal of elites, workers’ rights, and post-war justice. At times, the ideas of the French, Belgians, and their multinational peers revealed reciprocal inspirations. Their ideas were all the more unique considering they were formulated away from home and in anticipation of an imaginary post-war future. The periodicals they contributed to and sometimes edited, such as La France libre or Message: Belgian Review, contained a trove of thought still to be fully studied. Capturing the wartime ideas of these four figures helps complete or indeed reshape our understanding of their career and political thought. All four figures went on to become major academic or political actors in post-war France, Belgium, or indeed internationally.
Second World War, Intellectual History, Exile Thought, French Government-in-Exile, Belgian Government-in-Exile, Charles de Gaulle, Raymond Aron, Maurice Schumann, Louis de Brouckère, Robert Gillon, Transnational Thought, Cambridge School
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