Conscription, family, and the modern state : a comparative study of France and the United States / / Dorit Geva.

• Author: ProQuest (Firm); Geva, Dorit, 1974-
• TeilnehmendeR: ProQuest (Firm)
• Year of Publication: 2013
• Language: English
• Physical Description: xiii, 264 p.

"The development of modern military conscription systems is usually seen as a response to countries' security needs, and as reflection of national political ideologies like civic republicanism or democratic egalitarianism. This study of conscription politics in France and the United States in the first half of the twentieth century challenges such common sense interpretations. Instead, it shows how despite institutional and ideological differences, both countries implemented conscription systems shaped by political and military leaders' concerns about how taking ordinary family men for military service would affect men's presumed positions as heads of families, especially as breadwinners and figures of paternal authority. The first of its kind, this carefully researched book combines an ambitious range of scholarly traditions and offers an original comparison of how protection of men's household authority affected one of the paradigmatic institutions of modern states"-- Provided by publisher.

Table of Contents

Machine generated contents note: Part I. Conscription, Familial Authority, and State Modernity in Modern France: 1. Nationalized coercion, familial authority, and the pere de famille in nineteenth-century France; 2. Conscription, pronatalism, and decline of familial sovereignty in the early Third Republic; 3. The famille nombreuse versus the security state in interwar France; Part II. The Draft, Familial Authority, and State Modernity in the United States: 4. Breadwinning, selective service, and the First World War draft; 5. The father draft crisis and the Second World War; 6. Conclusion: familial authority and state modernity past and present.