The Divided Path: The German Influence on Social Reform in France After 1870

With The Divided Path, Allan Mitchell completes his superb trilogy on the German influence in France between the wars of 1870 and 1914. Mitchell’s focus here is on the French response to the pathbreaking social legislation passed during the 1880s in imperial Germany under Otto von Bismarck. Operating under a liberal republican regime, France tended to reject the interventionist policies of its imposing neighbor and to seek a distinctly French solution to the many social problems that became...