A Mission to Civilize: The Republican Idea of Empire in France and West Africa, 1895-1930

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Stanford University Press, 1997 - Political Science - 367 pages
This book addresses a central but often ignored question in the history of modern France and modern colonialism: How did the Third Republic, highly regarded for its professed democratic values, allow itself to be seduced by the insidious and persistent appeal of a "civilizing" ideology with distinct racist overtones?

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