Need help on a research paper
 

For my political science final, we have the chance of doing a paper on any topic we want in any of four countries we are studying. I chose France.
You must have heard about the protests this year in France against Sarkozy. Coupled with the fact that I am reading about the event in May '68, I came with a topic that my professor liked: the spontaneity of rebellion in France.

Just think of it:

The storming of the Bastille - There was widespread discontent, but the storming of the Bastille which became the symbol of the beginning of the revolution was entirely improvised.
The paris commune of 1871 - Sieged by Prussia and abandoned by their leaders, the people of Paris took hold of the means of distribution and offices of administration and for two months created the first modern proletarian government of the world.
May '68 - What began as a student protest grew into a General Strike with the support of almost two thirds of the French workforce. They desired a genuine revolution; none of it planned, it merely developed as time went by according to the needs each one saw needed to be met.

I'm focusing on those three for historical background, and in contemporary times I'm planning to contrast the protests against Sarkozy to the planned strikes that the French workers have grown used to participating.

Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be much literature about this aspect of France. So I need as much help as possible into getting reliable information and sources that analyze the history of France, particularly those three events, with spontaneity as one of its main factors.

So far I only have some interviews and writings about May '68, because in that movement the leaders did actively promote spontaneity in the actions of the people, while in the Bastille and the Commune, it just incidentally happened that way.

I also found this book called Origins of a Spontaneous Reovlution, but it seems it's about Germany in the 90's.
It might offer some good points that are not specific to just Germany, though.

Sounds like a cool project, but I don't really have any leads for you. All I can say is that Google and the library are your friends.

Hey if you don't talking to me through email, msn messenger, aim, or yahoo messenger, I would be delited to help.

I don't know if you access to proquest or not. If you dont, it's a really great source to use. But, your college has to be registered for it.

That's why I would need an email so I can access the program and send you an email of the articles :)

Great idea, I did read before that the French seem to be far less apathetic than the average Canadian (and I guess American) and are more likely to protest, I think it was Sicko where I heard someone say "the French government is too afraid to do anything really out of line because they know people will take to the streets".

I'll look for where I read about it before, in the meantime, you can include how they even go so far to annoy Sarkozy by buying and reading the book he hates the most:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...rite-book.html

I thought it was pretty funny, and pretty amazing that they'll go out of their way to read a book specifically because they know he hates it, as long as its not Twilight I'll go find out what Harper's least favorite book is.

Don't know anything off the top of my head, but if you're having trouble finding things, I would suggest libraries, trying to track down firsthand accounts of the more recent events if you can get in touch with individuals who lived through it, and more reputable search engines. I would not recommend google itself, but Google Scholar (scholar.google.com) is pretty good and is supposed to return only academic results. You could also use any more reputable search engines available to your school, of course.

The only thing I can think of which might help you is The Frenhc Revolution and the Psychology of Revolution by Gustav le Bon. No idea if you've already encountered it, but if not you might find it useful.

hey, how's your paper coming along?

Writing it right at this moment. Not a lot of material seems to talk about France from this perspective so most of the sources I've got are articles of what happened in these actions, but I believe I can make a good synthesis out of it.

Shit. My class I wrote a website all about this back in highschool. It's no longer hosted though I'm sad to say...I'll have a look for the book we based most of our research on, but I wouldn't hold out too much hope it's been ten years since i last looked at it and I've moved quite a few times.

If you're at all interested, I can PM you a copy of a history paper I wrote where I compared the Irish to the French in terms of taking revolutionary action.

Jstor FTW.

They usually have all the literature references you can imagine. Just saved my ass on finding genuine literature on the Doi Moi.