A mission to civilize

by Alice L. Conklin

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? By focusing on a particular group of colonial officials in a specific setting - the governors general of French West Africa from 1895 to 1930 - the author argues that the ideal of a special civilizing mission had a decisive impact on colonial policymaking and on the evolution of modern French republicanism generally.