Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, Los Angeles, 1984. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 171-183).

Texte remanié de: Diss.--Fachbereich Geschichtswissenschaft--Universität Mainz, 1995. / Bibliogr. p. 452-480.

Cette thèse est une recherche sur l'évolution de l'ambiance d'un édifice, la gare Saint-Lazare, depuis sa construction jusqu'à notre époque. Depuis une dizaine d'années, des travaux pionniers de recherches historiques sur les ambiances architecturales et urbaines tentent de démontrer leurs pertinences et leurs capacités à renouveler la pensée des architectes sur le patrimoine bâti. Cette recherche s'inscrit dans cette modalité d'approche et ambitionne d'enrichir les pratiques opérationnelles habituellement mises en oeuvre aujourd'hui. L'enjeu est de montrer un passage possible entre une recherche historique dans le domaine des ambiances et la pratique d'aménagement. Il s'agit de proposer une méthodologie historique sur les ambiances architecturales pouvant contribuer à une meilleure connaissance du rôle des phénomènes sensibles dans l'histoire environnementale de la ville. Dans l'analyse du vécu des propagations sensibles, nous avons cherché à donner à chacun des documents du corpus la possibilité d'être significatif. L'histoire de l'ambiance est comprise à partir de ses singularités (la notion d'effet sensible), avec ses continuités et ses discontinuités, ses élasticités. Son écriture imposait la description de la réalité physique de l'espace de la gare Saint-Lazare, et l'enquête dans un corpus permettant de retrouver les ressentis ferroviaires qui furent offerts aux voyageurs. Matérialisation de l'espace ambiantal plus que géographie environnementale de la ville, cette thèse fonde un « terrain » sur lequel l'ambiance peut devenir un objet historique.

This study examines the responses of European intellectuals since the 1880s to an increasingly virulent and organized anti-Semitism in Europe, and the ways in which they sought to understand the character and origins of the hatred, and to fathom and work out the problems, terms and possibilities for Jewish identity. Focusing on the French figures Bernard Lazare and Marcel Proust from the time of the Dreyfus Affair and then on the Frankfurt School of social theory and Hannah Arendt from the period around and after the Second World War, the thesis argues that these thinkers created a common historical-psychological discourse on anti-Semitism, which attempted to confront, comprehend and explain the historically critical issues of anti-Semitism and Jewish identity. The study explores the discourse’s fundamental assumptions, insights, and arguments regarding the origins, character, and magnitude of anti-Semitism. It also analyzes its contentions concerning the contradictions, sources, and alternatives for Jewish identity. But, more, it claims that, despite their frequent perceptiveness, these figures’ interpretations of the two concerns proved limited, deficient, even deeply flawed. The thesis seeks to show that its intellectuals’ attempt to understand the twin issues was hence a failure to grasp and interpret them adequately, and to resolve them. It contends further that what impaired the authors’ engagements with anti-Semitism and Jewish selfhood were ideas that were fundamental to their thinking. These intellectual factors, moreover, connected the figures solidly to important historical contexts that they inhabited, thereby implicating the significant settings in the epistemological errors and defeats. These momentous ideas thus operated as both contextualizing and destructive forces—linking the intellectuals to their home contexts and transforming their understanding of their historic problematic into a misunderstanding. / Thesis (Ph.D, History) -- Queen's University, 2009-04-16 08:34:25.821

After conquering Belgium and the Rhineland in 1794, the French Army of the Sambre and Meuse faced severe logistical, disciplinary, and morale problems that signaled the erosion of its capabilities. The army’s degeneration resulted from a revolution in French foreign policy designed to conquer the natural frontiers, a policy often falsely portrayed as a diplomatic tradition of the French monarchy. In fact, the natural frontiers policy – expansion to the Rhine, the Pyrenees, and the Alps – emerged only after the start of the War of the First Coalition in 1792. Moreover, the pursuit of natural frontiers caused more controversy than previously understood. No less a figure than Lazare Carnot – the Organizer of Victory – viewed French expansion to the Rhine as impractical and likely to perpetuate war. While the war of conquest provided the French state with the resources to survive, it entailed numerous unforeseen consequences. Most notably, the Revolutionary armies became isolated from the nation and displayed more loyalty to their commanders than to the civilian authorities. In 1797, the Sambre and Meuse Army became a political tool of General Lazare Hoche, who sought control over the Rhineland by supporting the creation of a Cisrhenan Republic. Ultimately, troops from Hoche’s army removed Carnot from the French Directory in the coup d’état of 18 fructidor, a crucial benchmark in the militarization of French politics two years before Napoleon Bonaparte’s seizure of power. Accordingly, the conquest of the Rhine frontier contributed to the erosion of democratic governance in Revolutionary France.