Ryan Perks | Trent University (original) (raw)

Papers by Ryan Perks

Research paper thumbnail of The law of diminishing returns

Zeitschrift für Nationalökonomie, 1974

Research paper thumbnail of After the Fall: The Rhetoric of National-Moral Reconstruction in Occupied France, 1940-1944

Utilizing pre-existing scholarship on post-conflict reconstruction in twentieth-century Europe, a... more Utilizing pre-existing scholarship on post-conflict reconstruction in twentieth-century Europe, as well as a variety of French primary sources, this thesis explores the concept of national-moral reconstruction as utilized by French political leaders in the wake of their country’s defeat by Nazi Germany in June 1940. In particular, this study analyzes the competing discourses employed by the Vichy regime and the various organizations of the French Resistance, as each group sought to explain to a broader public both the causes of the French defeat, as well as the repercussions of the German occupation of the country from June 1940 to August 1944. While previous scholarship has emphasized the physical and/or economic dimensions of post-conflict reconstruction—especially when considered in the context of the Second World War—this thesis focuses on issues of cultural identity and national history/memory in order to look at how French political leaders hoped to reconstruct the moral and cultural, as opposed to the strictly physical, fabric of their country in the wake of the comprehensive social, political, and military disaster brought about by the German occupation.

Research paper thumbnail of Revolutionising the French Revolution: Francois Furet and the Family Feud of the French Left, 1978 to the Fall of Communism.

Research paper thumbnail of From Phony War to World War: Time Magazine's European Coverage, January 1940 to the Fall of France.

Research paper thumbnail of Contested Metaphors: Imagining the Body Politic in Revolutionary France.

This essay attempts to trace the history of a metaphor-that of the "body politic" during the era ... more This essay attempts to trace the history of a metaphor-that of the "body politic" during the era of the French Revolution. 1 That my aim is to describe a term so amorphous, so subject to change over time, so open to multiple interpretations means that the arguments elaborated below cannot but be somewhat tentative. Yet I think that the period under study will yield at least a preliminary discussion of the various meanings with which this metaphor was associated over the course of so momentous a period of social and political change. Of the transformations brought about by the Revolution perhaps the most obvious, though no less profound, was the shift from a political system based on the divine right of king's to a system based on popular sovereignty. As Maurice Cranston has argued, this shift from a monarchical system, in which temporal power was said to emanate from the king himself, to one in which political authority was embodied by the nation, is perhaps the key development of the revolutionary era. 2 Yet novel though it invariably was, the notion of popular sovereignty, and even that of the nation, was not altogether liberated of the symbolic framework of the Old Regime. While it is clear that the birth of, say, the French Republic, which looked not to a king but to the nation for its political legitimacy, was radically different from preexisting forms of absolute authority, the ways in which these competing forms of 1 While the revolutionary era encompassed roughly the last decade and-a-half of the eighteenth century, the present essay will discuss certain aspects of the Old Regime as well. 2 See Maurice Cranston, "The Sovereignty of the Nation," in Colin Lucas, ed., The French Revolution and the Creation of Modern Political Culture. Vol. 2: The Political Culture of the French Revolution (Oxford: Pergamon Press, 1988) 97.

Research paper thumbnail of The law of diminishing returns

Zeitschrift für Nationalökonomie, 1974

Research paper thumbnail of After the Fall: The Rhetoric of National-Moral Reconstruction in Occupied France, 1940-1944

Utilizing pre-existing scholarship on post-conflict reconstruction in twentieth-century Europe, a... more Utilizing pre-existing scholarship on post-conflict reconstruction in twentieth-century Europe, as well as a variety of French primary sources, this thesis explores the concept of national-moral reconstruction as utilized by French political leaders in the wake of their country’s defeat by Nazi Germany in June 1940. In particular, this study analyzes the competing discourses employed by the Vichy regime and the various organizations of the French Resistance, as each group sought to explain to a broader public both the causes of the French defeat, as well as the repercussions of the German occupation of the country from June 1940 to August 1944. While previous scholarship has emphasized the physical and/or economic dimensions of post-conflict reconstruction—especially when considered in the context of the Second World War—this thesis focuses on issues of cultural identity and national history/memory in order to look at how French political leaders hoped to reconstruct the moral and cultural, as opposed to the strictly physical, fabric of their country in the wake of the comprehensive social, political, and military disaster brought about by the German occupation.

Research paper thumbnail of Revolutionising the French Revolution: Francois Furet and the Family Feud of the French Left, 1978 to the Fall of Communism.

Research paper thumbnail of From Phony War to World War: Time Magazine's European Coverage, January 1940 to the Fall of France.

Research paper thumbnail of Contested Metaphors: Imagining the Body Politic in Revolutionary France.

This essay attempts to trace the history of a metaphor-that of the "body politic" during the era ... more This essay attempts to trace the history of a metaphor-that of the "body politic" during the era of the French Revolution. 1 That my aim is to describe a term so amorphous, so subject to change over time, so open to multiple interpretations means that the arguments elaborated below cannot but be somewhat tentative. Yet I think that the period under study will yield at least a preliminary discussion of the various meanings with which this metaphor was associated over the course of so momentous a period of social and political change. Of the transformations brought about by the Revolution perhaps the most obvious, though no less profound, was the shift from a political system based on the divine right of king's to a system based on popular sovereignty. As Maurice Cranston has argued, this shift from a monarchical system, in which temporal power was said to emanate from the king himself, to one in which political authority was embodied by the nation, is perhaps the key development of the revolutionary era. 2 Yet novel though it invariably was, the notion of popular sovereignty, and even that of the nation, was not altogether liberated of the symbolic framework of the Old Regime. While it is clear that the birth of, say, the French Republic, which looked not to a king but to the nation for its political legitimacy, was radically different from preexisting forms of absolute authority, the ways in which these competing forms of 1 While the revolutionary era encompassed roughly the last decade and-a-half of the eighteenth century, the present essay will discuss certain aspects of the Old Regime as well. 2 See Maurice Cranston, "The Sovereignty of the Nation," in Colin Lucas, ed., The French Revolution and the Creation of Modern Political Culture. Vol. 2: The Political Culture of the French Revolution (Oxford: Pergamon Press, 1988) 97.