Raymond Poincaré

by John F. V. Keiger

In a career which ran from the 1880s to the 1930s, one of the most formative periods of modern French history, Poincare held the principal offices of state. He played crucial roles in France's entry into the First World War, the organisation of the war effort, the peace settlement, the reparations question, the occupation of the Ruhr and the reorganisation of French finances in the 1920s. His life and work is surrounded by controversy and myth, from 'Poincare-la-guerre' to 'Poincare-le-franc', which this book dissects. Using a host of new archival material ranging from ministry of finance sources to private diaries, Professor Keiger explores the historiography of the president. . Raymond Poincare is a subtle and fascinating portrait of one of the Third Republic's most prominent, yet most elusive, leaders - a politician who, somewhat surprisingly, held animal rights and feminism to be as important as party politics and public finance.