Book Reviews 60.5

principles.. . (He) meant to amuse, shock and bewilder.. . he would have been greatly surprised by all those solemn debates about his meaning that still continue (p. 267).

Humanism’s relation to science is also complex and ambiguous. The Italian humanists Poliziano and Pica studied not only ancient science, but also ancient astrology and magic. As Anthony Grafton (Humanism, Magic and Science) puts it:

(They) came to believe, as the Neo-Platonists had, in a visible world which manifested like a great three-dimensional hieroglyph the beneficent intentions of its creator.. the wise man could thus work wonders on earth.. This vision of power transformed the practice of magic from a marginal and suspect study to a reputable science with a very long pedigree in the ancient world (p. 101).

Humanists like Erasmus were not scientifically orientated, but their concern with all Greek thought opened up to the age the achievements of Greek science and geometry. And of course it was the belief of Plato in pure, eternal forms lying behind the phenomenal world of movement and appearance, that inspired Galileo’s search for universal mathematical laws which underpin the solar system.

Glasgow Polytechnic Tim Cloudsley

Histoire de la propagande en France de 1940 $1944: I’utopie Pbtain, Dominique Rossignol (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1991), Politique d’aujourd’hui, x + 352 pp., 175 FF. P.B.

If patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel, wartime propaganda is the last refuge of the patriot. Dominique Rossignol’s excellent study of wartime propaganda in France between 1940 and 1944 examines the efforts of Petainists, Nazi sympathisers, and Nazis to rally to their cause the French people, or at least those of the French people who were not Communists, Freemasons or Jews.

The major focuses of this book are the propaganda posters that appeared on walls both in Vichy and occupied France. She does a yeoman task in tracking down the agencies under whose auspices various posters were drawn and distributed. Some real differences are apparent between posters commissioned by Vichy, those drawn by one or another right-wing group in Paris under German protection, and those done in Berlin by the Propaganda Abteilung. The Vichy posters were the great perpetrators ofthe myth Pttain. Internally divided, French rightists could agree on little but their total faith in the old man with the deep blue eyes that seemed to express both sadness and suffering. Lacking a specific program, the Vichy message was unity, obedience and silence behind his charismatic figure. Dominique Rossignol follows recent studies that h&e challenged the belief that the Mar&ha1 was a pathetic old man manipulated by those around him. She stresses his strong though indirect role in the shaping of Vichy propaganda. Yet she notes that while everyone on the right put great stock in propaganda, the Germans were able to favor their own interests by making available to their supporters the resources to carry out expensive propaganda campaigns. Thus, the sanctity of peasant agriculture, one of the

606 Book Reviews

Marechal’s genuine concerns, never found adequate representation in the iconographic literature.

But as Rossignol shows, the calm and mystical faith in the Mar&ha1 was not the only propaganda message given to a country increasingly on the verge of invasion and in the throes of civil war. The far-right organisations patronised by the German in Paris and the posters made in Berlin sought more active engagement than mere Mar&ha1 worship. While Vichy posters lauded the ‘New Europe’, the enrages in Paris and the men in Berlin sought to enlist them directly into German-controlled military units fighting in the East. While Vichy posters blamed Jews for French failures, those in Parish and Berlin urged active participation in driving Jews out of France.

Yet, in many ways, the Nazi-directed propaganda that increasingly dominated as Vichy’s political hold weakened, exhibited considerable continuity with that of their Vichy rivals. Radical rightists in Paris and Nazis in Berlin simply selected among themes already present in Vichy propaganda and put them across in a bolder more militant tone. Over the last decade, much work has stressed continuity of purpose between Vichy and the Third Reich. This collection powerfully confirms this argument in another and important terrain of research.

Perhaps, as Rossignol argues, wartime propaganda in France was at its most effective in its omissions. At the same time as it so strongly emphasised unity and renewal of the French nation, propaganda subtly redefined the French nation to exclude its enemies. Portrayed as outside the national community, these groups were defined as marginal and peripheral. The worst deeds of the Vichy regime and the Nazi occupiers and their accomplices were done in a darkness and ignorance that were themselves creations of the propaganda machine.

Historians will find this book extremely useful and interesting because it succeeds in integrating visual representations with the large-scale political history of the era.

New School for Social Research Michael Hanagan

Egalitarianism and the Generation of Inequality, Henry Phelps Brown (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991), x + 552 pp., E15.00 P.B.

Publication of this paperback edition has given a wider audience access to a fascinating contribution, first published in 1988, to the literature on the distribution of income. It fully reflects Emeritus Professor Sir Henry Phelps Brown’s immense knowledge and expertise derived from a career-long study of the economics of pay. The bulk of the volume comprises two parts of equal extent but contrasting content. The first, The Rise of Egalitarianism, offers a scholarly and fascinating history of the idea of egalitarianism which establishes its complex nature and its entanglement with the concept of equity, and at the same time demonstrates the author’s familiarity with sources drawn from an extensive range of disciplines. The second, The Distribution of Income and Wealth in the Living Economy, uses data on personal incomes and wealth to present a statistical picture of the inequality (more marked in terms of wealth) which characterises access to economic resources across a number of countries and over time, and the extent to which redistribution has been effected by direct taxes and payment of benefits. This is