The Discovery of the Third World: Decolonization and the Rise of the New Left in France, c.1950-1976

Description

An innovative account of how the concept of the 'Third World' emerged in France from the mid-1950s through to the mid-1970s alongside a new leftist movement. The book reveals how, in an age of Cold War, decolonization and development thinking, French activists rose to prominence within the political Left, established transnational contacts, and developed a new global consciousness. Using the 'Third World' concept to reinvigorate anticolonial solidarity, they supported the Algerian FLN, the Cuban Revolution, and the liberation movements in Vietnam and Portuguese Africa. Insisting on the postcolonial character of France after the end of empire, they promoted new forms of cooperation with developing countries and immigrant workers. Examining the work of French leftists in publications such as Partisans, parties such as the PSU, and associations like the CEDETIM, Kalter sheds new light on a crucial moment in France's history, the global contexts that prompted it, and its worldwide ramifications.

Christoph Kalter is a historian of Western Europe in its global connections. Currently Assistant Professor of Global History at Freie Universitat Berlin, he was awarded a Ph.D. in Modern History from that same university (2010). His dissertation on Third World solidarity and the radical Left in France has received the Walter-Markov-Prize granted by the European Network in Universal and Global History (ENIUGH). He has since held a fellowship at the University of Berkeley, California, and published on French and Portuguese decolonization in journals such as Geschichte und Gesellschaft and WerkstattGeschichte. He is currently working on his second book, which analyzes postcolonial migrations to Portugal.

'Kalter's hugely impressive study ... essays a variety of disciplinary approaches: conceptual history, political history, intellectual history, exemplary archival and oral history, memory studies, and media studies.' Martin Shipway, The American Historical Review