Vichy's Afterlife: History and Counterhistory in Postwar France

One of the distinctive features of the "Vichy Syndrome"—the persistence of the memory of the Vichy regime in French political and cultural life—is that it has been extremely difficult for an authoritative historical discourse to impose itself. Why does Vichy, and all that the name entails, fascinate and even obsess the French, inflecting not only discussions of the past but of the present as well?

In Vichy's Afterlife, Richard J. Golsan explores the complexities of some of the m…