Julian Jackson

Robert Boulin. Itinéraires d'un gaulliste (Libourne, Paris)

which are further grouped into thematic subdivisions. The diversity of approaches on display is both a strength and a potential weakness of the volume taken as a whole. It allows for many fascinating analyses, yet it also tests the limits of the efficacy of the terms examined within. Some essays devote a considerable amount of space to the narratological definition of what, precisely, constitutes a ‘minimal narrative’, while other essays treat the topic more broadly, using the notion of minimalist narratives as a springboard for readings of various texts and films. The first part of the volume opens with an instructive contribution by Gerald Prince that lays the groundwork for many of the essays to come. He argues that rather than simply declaring minimal utterances as either narrative or nonnarrative, we would do better to consider them in terms of ‘degrees of narrativity’, pointing out the importance of context. Jean-Michel Adam highlights the richness and complexity of minimal narratives in his analysis of Félix Fénéon’s ‘Nouvelles en trois lignes’. Françoise Revaz and Stéphanie Pahud consider the implicit and explicit ways in which print advertising encourages consumers to elaborate narratives through the deployment of minimal textual and visual cues. Minimalism in fiction and film often takes the shape of a reduction, doing away with many of the signposts of traditional narrative forms. Among many intriguing essays, Marie-Odile André and Alain Guyot each consider travel narratives, while both Patrizia Lombardo and Isabelle Roussel-Gillet examine recent films ‘where nothing happens’. Compelling analyses abound throughout the volume, and while the diverse approaches make for a slightly less cohesivewhole, the dual focus on both minimal narratives and minimalist narratives means that this volume should be of interest both to narratologists as well as to scholars of contemporary literature.

Composer sous Vichy

archy into a ‘visual pedagogy’ (97) centred on the royal citizen-soldier that was designed to legitimate the new regime and differentiate it from its Bourbon predecessor. This official imagery was, however, challenged by popular representations, which drew different lessons from the endeavours of the Armée d’Afrique in Algeria about rights and duties in the new political order. The arguments in these two chapters rest upon a Geertzian reading of cultural sources that locates visual material in historically specific contexts in order to explicitly address questions of causality (15). The illustrations that accompany this discussion are used to excellent effect, serving to enhance an already engaging narrative. In the second section, ‘By Plow’, Sessions reverts to more conventional archival material in order to chart the competing visions of how best to peupler and fertiliser a colony which was perceived to offer ‘the possibility of a new kind of empire compatible with new political and social values’ (185). However, the analysis retains innovative elements, particularly in the final chapter, which presents insights into the mentalities and motivations that drove the early settlers across the Mediterranean, contributing some much-needed nuance to our understanding of the settler community of French Algeria. By highlighting their interconnectedness, By Sword and Plow challenges us to reconsider both the origins of French Algeria and the history of early nineteenth-century France from new perspectives. Sessions’ substantive and highly readable reinterpretation of this understudied period of French history will therefore be of significant interest and value to the academic community and beyond.