Ferry Retrouvé : Leaving the History of Empire Out of the “Liberal Moment” in France

This article examines how and why empire went missing from the liberal revival that began in 1970s France by examining a nineteenth-century political figure “rediscovered” during it: Jules Ferry, who as premier between 1880 and 1885 oversaw not only the creation of a secular school system in France, but also a huge burst of overseas expansion. In their portraits of him starting in the 1980s, historians such as François Furet and Mona Ozouf emphasized the former, while minimizing or excusing the latter. Reconstructing the historiography on Ferry since his death in 1893, it shows that this marked a striking shift from the past—when most historians viewed his imperialism as compatible with his liberal republicanism, indeed as his most important contribution to the Third Republic. In doing so, it also contributes to a discussion about the relationship between liberal republicanism and imperialism in France since the late nineteenth century.