Preface

Like many studies of this kind, this book emerged, much changed, from an earlier incarnation as a doctoral dissertation—a study of socialist politics and the revolutionary syndicalist labor movement in a village in southern France. The origins of this work are more personally and intellectually complex. Whether one chooses to recognize it or not, the métier of social historians is an intensely political one. How could it not be? We study the stuff of which politics is made: people, classes, groups, interests, social movements, and social conflict. Politics is everywhere, and as James Baldwin once remarked, even if we are not interested in it, it surely is interested in us. I mean politics in the sense of subject: the lives and struggles of ordinary men and women whose stories have more often than not been left out of the "master texts," and whose social action both included and went beyond the politics of parties and organizations. Politics as analysis: for writing social history entails making sense of social relations and the ways in which men and women have made their way through the contradictions and conflicts that structure their lives.

My taste for social history came from my own history. I grew up in the fifties—years usually associated with the so-called silent generation but that were in fact filled with turmoil in the United States, for those who chose to keep their eyes open. From the grotesque challenges to freedom of speech and conscience by McCarthyism to the beginnings of the civil rights movement in the South, these years were filled with political and social struggles of all kinds. The stories of the trials and troubles of ordinary people that circulated around the dinner table; the social realist paintings and murals of my father that depicted the plight of dustbowl farmers and the unemployed during the Depression; my own work in the sixties against racism, and participation in the movement against the war in Vietnam—all this fed my interest in the ways in which people have for centuries organized and fought against oppression and for social

and economic justice. These experiences were the real origin of my interest in the history of class formation, the development of the labor movement, and the heroic age of socialism and revolutionary syndicalism.

At a more specific level, my interest in the vineyard workers of the Aude emerged in a graduate seminar I took with Leo Loubère at SUNY Buffalo. Leo's generous sharing of his own research materials with his graduate students permitted me to start work on some of the questions that have informed this book: why did the Midi become red (we know it wasn't just the wine), and, especially, what was the relationship between the revolutionary syndicalist labor movement and the growth of socialist political parties in what then seemed like an unlikely setting—the vineyards of southern France? In the course of plodding through old newspapers, election returns, and police reports of strikes for a seminar paper on social and political change in the Aude, the Hérault, and the Pyrénées-Orientales, I discovered Coursan. This village at first glance seems like every other village in the vineyard plain of the Aude, with its neat stucco houses, red roofs, and dogs sleeping in the sun. Yet at the beginning of this century the workers and villagers of Coursan occupied center stage in the economic and social shifts that transformed lower Languedoc in the sixty years or so before the First World War. Leo encouraged my interest in local history, nurtured my thinking about these questions, and helped me acquire the tools to begin to answer them. I owe him a great deal.

I am also deeply indebted to the late Sanford Elwitt, who upon arrival at the University of Rochester began advising a young doctoral student who was about to dash off for thesis research in France. Sanford fed my interest in the politics of social history, always pushed me to ask more questions, and gently steered my thinking in more challenging directions. His critical spirit and keen editorial eye enabled me to transform a set of minute details about the economy and politics of a small French village into a doctoral dissertation and, still later, a book. But Sanford's friendship and intellectual companionship were in many ways even more important. I could always count on him to read a draft, offer advice, check out an idea, help me think through a problem, or just listen. His untimely death was a real loss, not

only for me, but also for the many others whose lives and work he touched.

Along the way, many other people, through their help, advice, and support, have lent much to this work. The tremendous generosity and warmth of the people of southern France is legend. But it is also true! And my Audois friends deserve all my thanks. In particular, Rémy and Monique Pech have been absolutely central to my work on the Aude. Both their scholarly work on the politics and economy of the Languedoc vineyards and their sharing of the history and culture of their pays have given me a look into the social history of southern France that I could never have obtained from libraries and archives alone. For Rémy's generous assistance in interviewing the men and women of Coursan I am enormously thankful, as I am for the opportunity to get to know three generations of Pechs from Vinassan, Aude. Xavier Verdejo, of Cuxac d'Aude, also helped me to see the peculiarities of local politics through his work and knowledge of Cuxac history.

Robert Debant and the staff of the Archives Départementales de l'Aude made my months at the Archives very pleasant indeed. I also wish to thank the staff of the Service de Cadastre in Narbonne, who helped me survive a tortuous journey through the maze of land survey records of Coursan. The Service du Tribunal de Grande Instance in Narbonne allowed me to consult the civil registers of Coursan in 1973. Maître Jean Auger, notaire in Coursan, generously brought down from his archives all the wills and records of property transmission I could have wanted and shared numerous and valuable anecdotes about the work of a notaire . Monsieur Gilbert Pla, mayor of Coursan, the staff of the Coursan town hall, and indeed the people of Coursan could not have been warmer or more generous with their assistance as I struggled to tell the story of their past.

I am equally indebted to others in Paris and elsewhere. Isabelle Martelly and Pierre Dimeglio generously offered friendship, support, and hospitality throughout the various phases of this project, as did Claude Mazauric; Jean-Paul Socard and Kanina Amry gave me the space and peace to finish writing at "La Germenie"; and Jean-Paul Socard and Deke Dusinberre assisted in translating some difficult texts. These last three stretched my

mastery of the language with nightly games of Scrabble (in French!). J. Harvey Smith generously shared with me his knowledge of the Midi and of the question viticole ; as seen in the pages that follow, I have learned much from his work. Members of the Social History Seminars at the University of Warwick and the University of Birmingham (U.K.) listened to and helpfully commented on papers that eventually became chapters. I owe an enormous debt to Ted Margadant, whose close reading of the manuscript helped me to transform a doctoral dissertation into a book; I also benefited enormously from John Merriman's careful reading and encouragement and from Dan Sherman's reading of earlier drafts. The American Council of Learned Societies and the Northeastern University Research and Scholarship Development Fund provided support to enable me to return to France on several occasions; the College of Arts and Sciences of Northeastern University allowed me to take time away from the university to finish the book. Cyrrhian MacRae of the University of Aston (U.K.) typed and typed an earlier version of this work. Nancy Borromey of the Department of History at Northeastern was a tremendous help in the final, rushed stages, as was Susanne McCain, who helped proofread and prepare the index. Sheila Levine and Rose Vekony of the University of California Press expertly and patiently shepherded the manuscript along; Anne Geissman Canright's superb copyediting helped to smooth out the rough edges. Finally (though in no sense last), Stephen Bornstein's support and intellectual companionship helped in innumerable ways to bring this project to completion. He knows how much that means.