Haine, W. Scott

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Haine, W. Scott

PERSONAL: Education: University of California, Berkeley, B.A.; University of Wisconsin-Madison, M.A., Ph.D.

ADDRESSES: Home— Half Moon Bay, CA. Office— Holy Names University, 3500 Mountain Blvd., Oakland, CA 94619. E-mail— [email protected].

CAREER: Historian, educator, and writer. Teaching positions at University of Maryland University College, Adelphi, College of San Mateo, San Mateo, CA, and Cañada College, Redwoord City, CA; Holy Names University, Oakland, CA, lecturer in European history.

WRITINGS

The World of the Paris Café: Sociability among the French Working Class, 1789-1914, Johns Hopkins University Press (Baltimore, MD), 1996.

The History of France, Greenwood Press (Westport, CT), 2000.

Culture and the Customs of France, Greenwood Press (Westport, CT), 2006.

SIDELIGHTS: In his book The World of the Paris Café: Sociability among the French Working Class, 1789-1914, French cultural historian W. Scott Haine explores the café culture of Paris, which included almost all of the social classes as well as a strong contingent of artists, writers, and academics. According to Haine, this culture played an important role in how the various classes both formed and expressed their identity. In this comprehensive history, the author explores how cafés were perceived and the various elements of café etiquette. He delineates the role of gender in café society and how this society contributed to relations among family members, various politicians, and a wide range of professionals who conducted business within their confines. In the end, according to Haine, the café society fostered debate among the classes that ultimately led to a blue-collar, or common, public forum.

David Garrioch, writing in the English Historical Review, commented: “The central theme of W. Scott Haine’s The World of the Paris Café... is the role of the cafe as one of the pillars of working-class identity.” Garrioch went on to write that “there is valuable material here for all those interested in the social history of nineteenth-century Paris.”Historian contributor Judith A. DeGroat wrote: “Drawing on newspapers; medical, social reform, and political tracts; and upon court records for crime and bankruptcy, Haine constructs a microhistory of the cafe milieu of Paris from the French Revolution to the Great War.” The reviewer added: “All told, this book makes a useful contribution to the study of working-class culture.” In a review of The World of the Paris Café in the Economist, a contributor commented that the author’s “academic study of their place in French social history is worthwhile and in places even interesting.” Jill Harsin wrote in the Journal of Modern History that the author “has found a subject that intersects many of the most vital areas of nineteenth-century urban life: the development of neighborhoods and sociability, the evolution of gender and class identities, the transformation of leisure and play.” Harsin added: “His treatment, both entertaining and analytical, sheds new light and provides important new perspectives for all of these issues.”

In The History of France, the author provides a history for beginning students and the general public. Beginning with the prehistory of France, Haine traces the country’s development through ancient and medieval times. He writes of the establishment of the French monarchy and delves into the genesis of the French Revolution and the downfall of Napoleon. As he moves into the twentieth century, the author recounts the fascist elements of Vichy France during World War II and how Charles de Gaulle played a primary role in reestablishing a stable political climate following the war. The history ends with the beginning of the twenty-first century. The book includes a timeline of historical events and various biographical sketches. Jack B. Ridley, writing in History: Review of New Books, commented that the book “is highly recommended as an introduction to the rich, varied, and influential history of France.”