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Reviews 249 and assessments of its lingering societal effects. McKinney offers several examples to buttress his argument that, for French society, “the violence of the colonial war continues to wreak havoc on the present” (125)—a statement that refers to the Indochina War (1946–54), but that is particularly true in the case of the Algerian War (1954–62). Seeking to “analyze comics about colonial-era Algeria as a virtual place of memory” (36), McKinney uses more recent bandes dessinées (the works of Jacques Ferrandez receive particular attention) to study Pied-Noir, Harki, Algerian-French, and Metropolitan French perspectives on the Algerian War and its“ongoing impact on French society” (202). Throughout his book, including in his discussions of aesthetic or thematic issues, McKinney reminds his readers of the historical context: “Comics about colonial-era adventurers in Indochina often combine a variety of well-worn themes from imperialist fiction, including comics: a search for wealth, knowledge, or personal identity; opium-smoking and drug-trafficking; and imperialist wars” (106). This meticulously-researched, tightly-argued study is impressive in terms of its attention to detail (it is also refreshingly free of conspicuous typographical errors). It should be noted that the orientalist theory (along with its well-worn and dreary jargon) that informs McKinney’s work is particularly noticeable in Redrawing French Empire. For instance, not all readers will agree with his contention, inspired by postcolonial theory, that, as many recent bandes dessinées (among other forms of cultural production) illustrate, “empire’s allure” has not vanished, that “it is still available to serve a neo-imperialist purpose, that is to unify the, or some, French people today in a common, nostalgic vision of a glorious colonial past”(54–55). That said, this insightful book will be of interest to all scholars working in the field of bandes dessinées. Western Washington University Edward Ousselin Scott, Anne, ed. Experiences of Poverty in Late Medieval and Early Modern England and France. Farnham: Ashgate, 2012. ISBN 978-1-4094-4108-3. Pp. xviii + 335.£70. From the fourteenth to the eighteenth century a gradual shift occurred in the perception of poverty, during which it came to be seen primarily as an anomaly to be dealt with rather than as an intrinsic part of society. This volume’s thirteen contributions provide an often fascinating multidisciplinary perspective on poverty as a lived experience and on the evolving interdependence between the poor and those who responded to them. Ten of the essays concern England and three France; they were originally presented at a 2010 University of Western Australia conference. One of the collection’s strengths is the diversity of sources and approaches; a thorough bibliography is included, as well as an index. Anne Scott provides a comprehensive introduction by framing the subject within the subtleties of what it meant to be in need and the complexities of the responders’motivations.The first part,“Survival Strategies,”follows an approach that Christopher Dyer describes as“pauper-centered.”Drawing on a wide range of resources, the authors avoid reducing the poor to an undifferentiated mass by inferring from their sources the life circumstances of identifiable paupers, including unmarried mothers, apprenticed youth, and age-differentiated single women. Two themes are prominent throughout the volume: the symbiotic relationship between the poor and the non-poor, and the way in which this reciprocity is marked, over time, by a shift towards accountability. The second part,“Forms of Poor Relief,” features a strong contribution by Susan Broomhall in which she uses records of the Paris HôtelDieu and its governors to outline the transition from a religiously-based response to an increasingly secularized program reliant on administrative machinery. Reciprocity also evokes the moral question of worth which underlies the third part,“Textual and Visual Representations.” The discursive power of poverty as a signifier is evident, as Mark Amsler shows, in the “re-reading” of the poor in light of the voluntary poverty of groups such as the Waldensians. By contrast, Scott’s study of a fourteenth-century poem, “La voie de povreté et de richesse,” offers a secular reformulation of the issue, showing how this didactic expression of the anxiety of the recently-married...

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