Robert Paxton
Robert Paxton is an American historian whose research transformed scholarship on Vichy France and helped shape comparative studies of fascism.
Vichy France: The French government established at Vichy after France’s defeat in 1940, which collaborated with Nazi Germany before its dissolution in 1944. Paxton’s archival research recast how historians understood this regime’s policies and agency.
The Vichy Syndrome: A term for France’s prolonged struggle over memory, responsibility, and denial concerning the Vichy regime and collaboration. Paxton’s findings helped unsettle a postwar national narrative that minimized French collaboration.
The National Revolution: The authoritarian and conservative program promoted by Vichy France under Philippe Pétain, replacing the republican motto with “Work, Family, Fatherland.” Paxton traced how Vichy used this program to reshape French institutions and society.
The Sword and the Shield: Robert Paxton’s 1966 study of the French officer corps and the collapse of France’s Third Republic in 1940. This earlier work shows Paxton’s attention to French institutions before his studies of Vichy.
German occupation of France: The military occupation of parts of France by Nazi Germany from 1940 to 1944, later extending across the country. Occupation constrained Vichy while leaving its leaders room to pursue policies of their own.
Vichy France and the Jews: Robert Paxton and Michael Marrus’s 1981 study of Vichy’s anti-Jewish policies and the deportation of Jews from France. This book applied Paxton’s archival approach directly to Vichy’s persecution of Jews.
Fascism: A far-right political ideology and movement that exalts the nation, rejects liberal democracy, and seeks authoritarian national renewal. Paxton’s comparative framework explains fascism through political action and development, not a fixed checklist.
Charles de Gaulle: French general and statesman who led Free France during the Second World War and later founded the Fifth Republic. De Gaulle’s postwar account emphasized a France united in resistance, against which Paxton’s findings stood.
French Resistance: The networks and movements that opposed German occupation and Vichy rule in France during the Second World War. Resistance accounts once shaped interpretations that Paxton challenged with evidence from Vichy’s administration.
French historiography: The study of how historians have interpreted France’s past and how those interpretations have changed. Paxton’s research provoked a major reassessment of France’s wartime history.