The Fischer controversy, the war origins debate and France: a non-history

The controversy that followed publication in 1961 of Fritz Fischer’s Griff nach der Weltmacht was not restricted to West Germany. Even if the Fischer debate abroad did not acquire the vehemence it took on domestically, intellectually the effect was powerful. This article will demonstrate that France was potentially a most propitious terrain for the Fischer controversy to spread. Yet for a variety of reasons, largely to do with the nature of history practised in France in the 1950s and 1960s, it had remarkably little impact. The reasons for there being little reaction to the Fischer controversy also explain the state of the war origins debate in France fifty years on and why the war’s causes have not been seriously investigated by French historians for several decades

Menthol Suppresses Nicotinic Acetylcholine Receptor Functioning in Sensory Neurons via Allosteric Modulation

In this study, we have investigated how the function of native and recombinant nicotinic acetylcholine receptors (nAChRs) is modulated by the monoterpenoid alcohol from peppermint (−) menthol. In trigeminal neurons (TG), we found that nicotine (75 μM)-activated whole-cell currents through nAChRs were reversibly reduced by menthol in a concentration-dependent manner with an IC50 of 111 μM. To analyze the mechanism underlying menthol's action in more detail, we used single channel and whole-cell recordings from recombinant human α4β2 nAChR expressed in HEK tsA201 cells. Here, we found a shortening of channel open time and a prolongation of channel closed time, and an increase in single channel amplitude leading in summary to a reduction in single channel current. Furthermore, menthol did not affect nicotine's EC50 value for currents through recombinant human α4β2 nAChRs but caused a significant reduction in nicotine's efficacy. Taken together, these findings indicate that menthol is a negative allosteric modulator of nAChRs

Wielding finance as a weapon of diplomacy : France and Britain in the 1920s

France has long conceived of finance as a weapon of diplomacy. The role of French finance in sealing the Franco-Russian Alliance in 1892 is well known; the Quai d'Orsay's use of access to the Paris financial markets and the Paris Bourse as an instrument of foreign policy before the First World War was the subject of much research in the early 1970s. However, the use of currency and credit manipulation as a diplomatic weapon and a lever of power has received less attention. After the First World War the opportunity for such manipulation became more widespread. Following the outbreak of War many currencies came off the gold standard and were slow to return to it in the post-war era giving rise to considerable financial instability through the 1920s. The German, French and British currencies were all buffeted at some stage during the 1920s. The problem was that inter-war economic policy-makers were less committed to defending the gold reserve and gold parity when confronted with competing domestic variables such as unemployment. This encouraged a splintering of international collective effort into competing national monetary systems each pursuing its own monetary policy and interests.The ensuing instability of the interwar years offered opportunistic advantage for a government wishing to seize it. Currency vulnerability and the ramifications it had for national economic policies became all too obvious. Friends and foe alike could not ignore how short term concerted action by banks and financial institutions to manipulate a currency by heavy selling or buying, possibly at the behest of state authorities, could undermine governments and their policies while conferring political leverage on others. It was not long before certain governments would view currency manipulation as an additional weapon in their diplomatic arsenal. The question of stabilising the French franc in the 1920s and returning it to a fixed parity against gold has been studied primarily from economic and political perspectives; the diplomatic has been under-researched.This article will analyse first how France perceived herself to be the object of currency manipulation for political aims by Germany and Britain in the early 1920s; and then how during the stabilisation of the franc after 1926 under Premier and Finance Minister Raymond Poincaré she was able to turn the tables and use short term financial advantage as leverage against Britain on important policy matters

Edwin Keiger Letters, MSS.1942

Abstract: Seven letters sent to Edwin Keiger of the 53rd North Carolina Regiment, 1862-1863.Scope and Content Note: This collection consists of seven letters to Edwin Keiger, during the years of 1862 and 1863. Six letters are from family members, one is from Sergeant William A. Butner. The content of the family letters contain material related to an unidentified 1863 fight in which Keiger participated, weather, health, and minor domestic concerns. Some of the later family letters refer to Keiger's illness (smallpox) and the Butner letter describes a march from Fredericksburg to Culpepper, VA.Biographical/Historical Note: Edwin Keiger, of Stokes County, North Carolina, was a member of the 53rd North Carolina Regiment, Company D. He died of disease in July, 1863; he was 24 years old. The North Carolina 53rd fought in the battles of Cold Harbor, Gettysburg, and the Shenandoah Valley Campaign

The 'novelty' of Sarkozy's foreign policy towards NATO and the US : the long view

Nicolas Sarkozy's reintegration of NATO's military command in 2009 has been presented as radical, given the traditional Gaullist stance of an arm's length relationship with NATO and the US. This article argues first, the difficulty for any French political leader to alter radically the course of French foreign and defence policy; second, that Sarkozy's policy is merely conforming to a longer-term trend of negotiating between European and Atlantic positions dating from the beginning of the twentieth centur