History

Las costureras de Auschwitz cuenta la historia de las veinticinco mujeres y adolescentes, la mayoría judías, que en medio del horror absoluto del campo de exterminio de Auschwitz-Birkenau fueron seleccionadas para confeccionar ropa a medida para las damas de la alta sociedad nazi. Sus habilidades se convirtieron en su única esperanza de salvarse de una muerte segura en las cámaras de gas.

Basándose en un impresionante trabajo de investigación, incluso en entrevistas con la última costurera superviviente, la novelista e historiadora Lucy Adlington ofrece una detallada e inestimable reconstrucción del vínculo de amistad que unía a aquellas valientes mujeres y su papel en la resistencia del campo, al tiempo que expone la codicia, la crueldad y la hipocresía del Tercer Reich.

Este libro ofrece una nueva mirada a un capítulo poco conocido de la Segunda Guerra Mundial y del Holocausto y saca a la luz historias de vidas excepcionales que deben ser contadas antes de que sea demasiado tarde.

«Cautiva, inspira y enriquece.» Heather Morris, autora del best seller El tatuador de Auschwitz

«Lucy Adlington cuenta los horrores de la ocupación nazi y de los campos de concentración desde un ángulo fascinante y original. Nos introduce en un aspecto poco conocido de la época, destacando el papel de la ropa en la sociedad más sombría que se pueda imaginar.» Alexandra Shulman, anterior directora editorial de la revista British Vogue

«Una novedosa y conmovedora historia de supervivencia en Auschwitz que involucra a un grupo extraordinario de mujeres.» Kirkus Reviews

La historia real de las mujeres que sobrevivieron al Holocausto diseñando prendas de alta costura para la élite nazi

Una historia nueva, muy poco conocida, del Tercer Reich.

Victor Capesius custodiaba la reserva nazi de gas Zyklon B y proporcionaba fármacos que eran empleados por médicos para llevar a cabo experimentos espantosos y mortales en mujeres embarazadas y niños.

Hurgaba en los cadáveres de los judíos en busca de empastes de oro, y llevado por la codicia, arrastraba pesadas maletas llenas de ese metal extraído a miles de víctimas. El farmacéutico de Auschwitz cuenta su historia.

Tras una exhaustiva investigación, Patricia Posner recrea la historia de Victor Capesius, desde su paso como vendedor por la industria farmacéutica, su posterior incorporación al nazismo, su ascenso como siniestra figura en los campos de concentración y el tortuso proceso que llevó a su captura y condena en los juicios de Auschwitz.

Posner presenta documentos y testimonios inéditos que revelan la vida y obra de uno de los asesinos más siniestros y desconocidos de la brutal maquinaria del Tercer Reich.

Thomas Chapais is one of the great French-Canadian political and intellectual figures of the beginning of the 20th century. Appointed to the Legislative Council of Quebec in 1892, then to the Senate of Canada in 1919, he played a leading role in the debates on educational reform in Quebec as well as in the Manitoba and Ontario school crises.

Notwithstanding, he is mainly remembered today as a historian and not as a politician. Biographer of Jean Talon and of the Marquis de Montcalm, and author of a remarkable overview of the history of Canada, Thomas Chapais weaved a coherent historical narrative, contributing to the advancement of knowledge and to important historiographical debates. Chapais occupies a leading place within the history of intellectual culture in French-Canada. Chapais the historian was indeed the last great representative of French-Canadian loyalism, a doctrine notably based on a particular interpretation of the 1760 Conquest.

In this seminal work on Chapais, D.C. Bélanger probes the historian’s writings to better understand its emergence, its socio-cultural context, the main tenets of this thought, its influence and its critical legacy.

Published in French.

The "Long '68" period is characterized by a potent re-emergence of minority nationalisms, protest regionalisms, and Indigenous ambitions in the West, from Brittany to Québec, passing through Catalonia, Wales, Australia, and New Zealand. This book reviews some of the most representative cases as well as lesser-known examples, attending to the chronology, causes and consequences of this period’s nationalist renewal.

This collection of essays is the first to propose a global and comparative view of this “national wave” in an attempt to understand the simultaneousness of these movements. Several hypotheses are put forward. The profound sociocultural changes caused by the socioeconomic “Golden age” of the 1950s and 1960s forced social groups and individuals to call into question their worldview, as the culture they inherited grew increasingly distant from reality. Moreover, the internal influence of the decolonizing and anti-imperialist struggles weakened the nation-state and offered regionalist militants a new discursive repertoire. Finally, the social struggles of the New Left and the generalised spirit of protest of the 1960s-70s –which reached their zenith in 1968 – had a cognitive impact that paved the way to an ideological transformation unlike any seen before.

This book offers a historiographic analysis of the “Long 1968” period in its many dimensions (political, socioeconomic, cultural) as well as a theoretical and sociological reflection on the dynamics and shades of its nationalist and regionalist claims. It is the first comparative study of international scope to shed light on the simultaneous re-emergence of claims of a nationalist nature among minorities in this decade of protest and utopia.

Published in French.

Au milieu du XXe siècle, soit au cours du passage de la société traditionnelle au monde contemporain, l’Ontario français a connu une rupture définitive dans son organisation sociale. C’est à ce moment que les Franco-Ontariens mettent sur pied un réseau unique de centres culturels, véritables foyers d’intégration d’une collectivité éclatée. Existe-t-il un lien entre ces deux phénomènes ? Pour répondre à cette question, Diane Farmer décrit les mécanismes de maintien et de transformation de l’identité franco-ontarienne en soulignant le rôle primordial du centre culturel dans ce processus. Elle analyse l’émergence et le fonctionnement de quatre centres culturels de l’Est et du Nord-Est, de même que la dynamique communautaire dans laquelle chacun inscrit son action. Cette étude lui permet de préciser les éléments qui assurent la cohésion du groupe et de cerner dans quelle mesure il y a création d’un espace francophone en Ontario.

Publié en français

Fondée à Sudbury en 1992, la Société Charlevoix est un regroupement d’universitaires qui se consacrent à des travaux savants sur l’Ontario français. Par son nom, la Société honore la mémoire du jésuite Pierre-François-Xavier de Charlevoix (1682-1761), qui a laissé des observations remarquables sur le territoire ontarien. Limités en tout temps à dix en nombre, ses membres examinent les réalités franco-ontariennes selon les perspectives variées qu’apportent leurs disciplines. Leur élection se fait par cooptation, à l’unanimité des voix. Depuis 1995, la Société Charlevoix publie les Cahiers Charlevoix. Études franco-ontariennes, un collectif exclusivement dévolu à la diffusion des travaux de ses membres.

Depuis leur création, nos Cahiers Charlevoix n’ont jamais comporté plus de six essais. La présente livraison, la treizième de la série, en compte sept : précédant les six études courantes de 2020, l’hommage rendu à un membre émérite disparu, Gaétan Gervais, commandait cette première.

Publiée sous le patronage de la Société Charlevoix, l’édition de ce treizième Cahier Charlevoix est le fruit d’une entente entre la Société Charlevoix et les Presses de l’Université d’Ottawa.

Des jeunes francophones issues de provinces différentes ont-ils la même perception de l’histoire canadienne ? Cet ouvrage nous entraine au cœur d’une réflexion inédite sur le passé national dans la conscience de la jeunesse francophone du Québec et de l’Ontario.

L’avenir du passé présente les résultats d’une vaste enquête sur la mémoire et la conscience historique du Canada français au sein de la jeunesse francophone du Québec et de l’Ontario. L’enquête soulève la question du rapport que des jeunes milléniaux entretiennent avec le passé des francophones au pays et se dotent d’une vision narrative pour orienter leur vie de citoyen et de membre d’une communauté d’appartenance. Plus de 600 récits forment un corpus original qui met en perspective les résultats obtenus au sein de chaque groupe. L’enquête permet de valider le postulat selon lequel les participants de ces deux provinces partagent un récit commun de l’histoire nationale et s’identifient aux mêmes communautés d’appartenance. L’ouvrage nous entraine également au cœur d’une vaste réflexion sur la transmission de l’histoire nationale chez les jeunes en contexte francophone canadien.

Quelle place devrait occuper les enquêtes comme celle-ci dans l’éducation historique des jeunes ? Comment l’école peut-elle favoriser la construction d’une conscience historique plus réfléchie et l’élaboration de narrations plus complexes, actualisées, et ouvertes aux réalités multiples de notre monde ?

Publié en français

Between 1928 and 1971, nearly one million immigrants landed in Canada at Pier 21 in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

During those years, it was one of the main ocean immigration facilities in Canada, including when it welcomed home nearly 400,000 Canadians after service overseas during the Second World War. In the immediate postwar period, Pier 21 became the busiest ocean port of entry in the country. Today, people across Canada still enjoy connections to Pier 21 through family history and stories of arrival at the site. Since 1998, researchers at the Pier 21 Interpretive Centre and now the Canadian Museum of Immigration have been conducting interviews, reviewing archival materials, gathering written stories, and acquiring photographs, documents, and other objects reflecting the history of Pier 21.

Quai 21 : Une histoire (also available in English: Pier 21: A History) builds upon the resulting collection. It presents a richly illustrated history of this important Canadian ocean immigration facility during its years of operation and later emergence as a site of public commemoration.

Is the history of Laurentian seigneuries the offspring of political conflict? This question, and many others, are among those addressed in Le féodalisme dans la vallée du Saint-Laurent. In this work, Sanfilippo summarizes and analyzes 250 years (1763–2008) of historiographical production in French and English Canada that deals with the Laurentian seigneurial regime.

But the goal of the book is also to put the historians’ discourses on the seigneurial regime back into their respective political contexts. By doing so, the author firmly demonstrates how the history of this regime is inextricably linked to Canadian political dynamics.

The result of an objective look by an Italian historian who studied English and French works for many years, Le féodalisme dans la vallée du Saint-Laurent is also a unique essay in the Canadian historiographical landscape now translated into French. At a time of clear revival in seigneurial history, readers will discover the captivating story of Laurentian seigneuries and encounter Sanfilippo’s opinions.

The postface, written by Olivier Guimond and Arnaud Montreuil, pursues Sanfilippo’s reflections from 2008 to today.

Far from being restricted to barbed wire camps or within the borders of a single nation, the detention of German soldiers remains a little-known part of history in the specific context of the triangular relationships between Ottawa, Washington, D.C., and London.

It is from this perspective that the book Comment traiter les « soldats d’Hitler ? » (How to Treat “Hitler’s Soldiers”?) explores the political dynamics between Canadian, American, and British authorities regarding the treatment of German prisoners of war. Throughout the Second World War, these Allied forces detained close to 600,000 of “Hitler’s soldiers” on their respective territories. While managed by each state, these incarceration operations raise several issues involving interallied cooperation.

This detailed analysis compares the captivity regimes developed by each government according to their national prerogatives and looks at important differences in how the three North Atlantic Allies dealt with enemy soldiers. Turcotte takes stock of the countries’ common and respective policies, which stemmed from participation in joint projects, regular meetings looking to better coordinate their actions, consultations and correspondence between them, as well as discussions on problems tied to the detention of prisoners of war and the solutions put forth. It also presents each state’s position on the 1929 Geneva Convention, the forced labour of detainees, and the denazification program.

The conditions of captivity for German soldiers were therefore the result of mutual influence between the three main detaining powers of the Western Front, which was shaped by each of their experience. Following this argument, the author brings to light the key role Canada played within the Allied forces at the time.

Published in French.

Fondée à Sudbury en 1992, la Société Charlevoix est un regroupement d’universitaires qui se consacrent à des travaux savants sur l’Ontario français. Par son nom, la Société honore la mémoire du jésuite Pierre-François-Xavier de Charlevoix (1682-1761), qui a laissé des observations remarquables sur le territoire ontarien. Limités en tout temps à dix en nombre, ses membres examinent les réalités franco-ontariennes selon les perspectives variées qu’apportent leurs disciplines. Leur élection se fait par cooptation, à l’unanimité des voix. Depuis 1995, la Société Charlevoix publie les Cahiers Charlevoix. Études franco-ontariennes, un collectif exclusivement dévolu à la diffusion des travaux de ses membres.

Le numéro 14 comprend des articles de :
Jean-Pierre Pichette, Yves Frenette, Simon Laflamme, Julie Boissonneault, Ali Reguigui, Serge Miville et Michel Bock.

Exploited young women or committed union activists? How should we remember the allumettières working at the E. B. Eddy match factory, in Hull?

Between 1854 and 1928, an anonymous workforce of female workers produced 90% of Canada’s matches—grueling and incredibly dangerous work given the continual risk of fire and, more importantly, given the manipulation of toxic chemicals. This work had disastrous consequences for these women, and it is therefore of little surprise that they launched the very first female-driven union dispute in Quebec.

In this first-ever book devoted to Hull’s allumettières, historian Kathleen Durocher tells their fascinating story using a trove of historical documents, including Canadian censuses, various governments, private, and parish archives, as well as numerous articles published in scientific journals and large-circulation newspapers.

Durocher presents a demographic profile of the allumettières, followed by sections on their daily life, their role within the working class, their positions at the factory, their working conditions—particularly hazards linked to the use of white phosphorus—, and their union activities from 1918 to 1928, when the company closed its doors in Hull.

Tragic and inspiring, the history of Hull’s allumettières has marked both regional and Canadian history for more than a century, yet it remains little known. With this book, their story is finally brought to light.

Published in French.

Ce dixième volume des Cahiers Charlevoix regroupe cinq études sur l’Ontario français, qui traitent du diocèse de Sault-Sainte-Marie dans le conflit franco-irlandais entre 1904 et 1934; des perspectives amoureuses et conjugales des jeunes du nord-est de l’Ontario; des aspects de l’histoire des Franco-Ontariens du Centre et du Sud-Ouest de 1970 à 2000; de l’art perdu de « faire des chansons » de la région du Détroit ainsi que des propos et confidences du jésuite ethnologue Germain Lemieux.

Publié en français

A testament to the resilience and determination of Black North Carolinians to achieve educational equality

This book examines the educational experiences of Black North Carolinians during the American Civil War and Reconstruction period, 1861–1877. By highlighting the collaborative efforts that led to the growing network of schools for the formerly enslaved people, it argues that schooling the Freedpeople was a contested terrain, fraught with conflicting visions of Black freedom and the role education should play. Although Black men and women emerged as the driving force behind the educational endeavors of this period, their work was facilitated by Northern aid and mission­ary societies, the federally-mandated Freedmen’s Bureau, and over 1,400 teachers from various regional and racial backgrounds. Yet the educational landscape was far from uniform, and the individuals and organizations involved had their distinct visions regarding the nature and purpose of Freedpeople’s education.

Through the use of qualitative and quantitative research methods, this book offers new insights into the reasons why Black and white Northerners and Southerners elected to become teachers. By examining their diverse motivations and experiences, it argues that attitudes toward Freedpeople’s education were complex and fluid, defying neat characterization.

Despite mounting obstacles and opposition to their work, Black North Carolinians’ unrelenting quest for education ultimately gave rise to free public schooling for both races, the professionaliza­tion of Black teachers, and an extensive network of Historically Black Colleges and Universities.

The completion of the Erie Canal in 1825 was a monumental achievement. Linking the Great Lakes to the Atlantic Ocean, it transformed New York City into a hub of international trade, drove the rise of industrial cities in once sparsely populated areas, and accelerated the westward expansion of the United States. Yet few of the laborers who toiled along the canal shared in the prosperity it brought.

Mark S. Ferrara tells the stories of the ordinary people who lived, worked, and died along the banks of the canal, emphasizing the forgotten role of the poor and working class in this epochal transformation. The Raging Erie chronicles the fates of the Native Americans whose land was appropriated for the canal, the European immigrants who bored its route through the wilderness, and the orphan children who drove draft animals that pulled boats around the clock. Ferrara also shows how the canal served as a conduit for the movement of new ideas and religions, a corridor for enslaved people seeking freedom via the Underground Railroad, and a spur for social reform movements that emerged in response to the poverty and suffering along its path.

Brimming with vivid characters drawn from the underbelly of antebellum life, The Raging Erie explores the social dislocation and untold hardships at the heart of a major engineering feat, shedding light on the lives of the canallers who toiled on behalf of American expansion.

For several years now, sigillography as an independent subarea in the field of Byzantine studies has received increasing attention from both Byzantine studies and related disciplines, as it is the only area still able to provide academia with large amounts of material not previously analysed. The articles of Studies in Byzantine Sigillography deal with all aspects of Byzantine sigillography: presentation of new finds, discussion of new methods, questions of the political and ecclesiastical administration of Byzantium, prosopography, historical geography, and art-historical and iconographical problems.

Der Band verhandelt ein hochaktuelles Thema in historischer Perspektive. Erstmals werden Kriegskindheiten epochenübergreifend von der Antike bis in die Gegenwart in Augenschein genommen und historische Gemeinsamkeiten, Unterschiede, Kontinuitäten sowie Wandlungsprozesse beleuchtet. Das Interesse gilt Fragen von Erziehung und Propaganda, kindlichem Alltag, Kriegsprägungen und transgenerationalen Folgen.

Sigillography has provided Byzantine studies with large amounts of new material for analysis. The articles in Studies in Byzantine Sigillography deal with all aspects of Byzantine sigillography: presentation of new finds, discussion of new methods, questions of the political and ecclesiastical administration of Byzantium, prosopography, historical geography, and art-historical and iconographical problems.

Entscheidungen über die Vergabe begehrter, einflussreicher oder lukrativer Positionen werden ständig getroffen. Sie sind teilweise kontingent, da ihre Folgen erst im Rückblick klar werden. Trotzdem müssen sie in einer Weise erfolgen, die sowohl für Gesellschaften als Ganzes als auch für die Unterlegenen akzeptabel ist; dafür sind ganz unterschiedliche Mechanismen möglich, die der Band in einem epocheübergreifenden Vergleich diskutiert.

Warum lohnt es sich über Infrastrukturen nachzudenken? Gegenwärtig erleben wir eine schier atemberaubende Zunahme und Verdichtung an infrastrukturell geleisteten Verknüpfungen rund um den Planeten. Gleichzeitig sind Infrastrukturen selbst auch Gegenstand sozial- und geisteswissenschaftlicher Forschungsarbeiten geworden.

Dabei sind Infrastrukturen – so die leitende These dieses Essays – Instrumente und Medien der Verräumlichung.