The Paradise of Association

The Paradise of Association is the first comprehensive treatment of the tumultuous revolutionary clubs of 1871. It proposes an innovative approach to the Paris Commune, the largest urban uprising in modern European history. For Marx and Lenin the Commune was a brilliant harbinger of proletarian dictatorship; for others, it was merely the last of the nineteenth-century revolutions. The Paradise of Association argues instead that the Commune resulted from revolutionary action by popular clubs and was shaped by the unique political culture fostered within them. The volume combines a detailed social analysis of 733 club militants with a "new cultural history" perspective, examining the language and practices of popular organizations in relation to such topics as historical memory, gender difference, definitions of citizenship, and revolutionary symbolism. . This new perspective on the Commune entails revising several assumptions about the development of socialism and the evolution of party structures and popular movements in the late nineteenth century. It will be of interest to historians, to those interested in the relationship between popular culture and politics, and to researchers and students of gender relations and class dynamics in revolutionary movements.