Cover of “The Paris Commune: A Global History”

The Paris Commune:A Global History

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The Paris Commune as world revolutionary event and laboratory for republican and socialist ideas

In 1871 and over the years to follow, the impact of the Paris Commune was felt the world over. Concepts and practices developed there were taken up in all corners of Europe and travelled as far afield as Mexico City and Algiers. Drawing on history, anthropology, and the sociology of crises and revolutions, Quentin Deluermoz follows the revolution from its origins on the Parisian street, capturing the perspective of ordinary men and women, to examine the delicate question of its legacy.

In recent decades, the Commune has been a touchstone for social and political struggles in France, the United States, Spain, Mexico, and the Syrian Kurdish region of Rojava. This resurgence is rooted in twentieth-century anarchist and communist history. It hearkens back to often forgotten meanings of socialism, federalism, and republicanism. Deluermoz recaptures the intensity of the ‘Commune moment’, helping readers grasp its enduring relevance for today.

Reviews

  • Deluermoz’s exploration of the Commune – in its Parisian core and in its national, European, and global reverberations – expands our knowledge of a history we thought we knew. Based on meticulous and widespread archival research, above all in French national and provincial archives, but also in Great Britain, Spain, and the United States, the book is both empirically rich and theoretically alert. Original in conception, generous in spirit, written with care and passion, this is an important contribution to French and transnational history.

    William Sewell JrJournal of Modern History
  • Quentin Deluermoz’s superb new book represents the most original contribution yet to rethink the place of the Commune in the global history of the nineteenth century. His study seeks to explain how this short-lived experiment of just seventy-two days fits into broader trends and processes, both in its origins—with strong roots in the transnational activism of 1848, the remaking of urban space, the socialist dream of workers’ self-government—but also its reception.

    Thomas StammersNineteenth-Century French Studies
  • In my view, this is the fullest account of the Paris Commune, and other Communes. This is an extremely impressive study of true significance.

    John Merriman, Yale University