Defeated Flesh: Medicine, Society, and the Birth of Modern France

Defeated Flesh is a compelling study of the French defeat of 1870 and the socialist uprising of the Commune of Paris, a crucial turning point in the making of modern France. By examining the history of the body and medicine, Taithe shows how the French mobilized for the war effort and how their ultimate defeat had devastating cultural and social consequences that led to the fin de siècle spirit. Reinterpreting the siege of Paris, the physical suffering caused by the war, and rationing in an exceptionally harsh period of French history, the author challenges current debates on citizenship, centralism, and modern warfare. Taithe’s original approach and the wide range of previously untouched source material he draws upon cast a new light on the social aspirations behind the world’s first socialist uprising and on the fears of national decline so common in Western Europe before 1914. This intriguing and highly original study will be of interest to all readers of French history and of European and French culture, as well as to specialists on the history of war and medicine.