TOUT! FRENCH REVOLUTIONARY PRESS 1968-73

Tout! in context 1968-1973: French radical press at the crossroads of far left, new movements and counter-culture

Manus McGrogan

More Info: PhD 2010

Abstract

With this thesis on the aftermath of 1968 in France, I have recreated the moment and environment of the libertarian paper Tout!

Usually associated in historiography with the birth of the gay liberation movement in France, my initial research revealed its influence as more penetrative and revealing of the diverse left and new, counter cultural movements of the early 1970s. I sought the testimony of former militants, writers and artists to uncover historical detail and motivations, and consulted relevant textual archives, aiming to situate and examine the paper within a number of interrelated contexts.

Results showed the paper‟s historical touchstones of scurrilous Revolutionary papers and 19th/20th

caricature typified by L’Assiette au Beurre.

The parallel paths of Dada, surrealism and situationism, and the Marxist legacy of the Russian Revolution, foreshadowed the blend of cultural and political in Tout!May „68 was the crucible of militant, festive currents and speech, a time of rupture and reorientation for the various activists later at Tout!, the paper Action and posters of the Beaux-Arts inspiring new forms of agit-prop. In the aftermath of 1968, Mao-libertarian current Vive La Révolution converged with an ex-Trotskyist, faculty-based group seeking cultural revolution. Figureheads Roland Castroand Guy Hocquenghem oversaw the merger of these groups and outlooks, coinciding with the launch of Tout! as a „mass‟ paper. With anew look and "new political attitude‟, influenced by Italian radicals and the US underground, Tout! challenged all forms of authority in Pompidou‟s France, climaxing with the eruption of gay liberation in no.12. It was Tout! ‟s role in promoting„autonomous‟ gender, sexual and youth movements that led to the disaggregation of Vive la Révolution, and despite successful sales the paper came to a sudden end in the summer of 1971.Like the rest of the far left, Vive La Révolution and Tout!suffered State repression, but evolved from a „proletarian‟ Marxist critique of capitalism to attack the life routine of work, school and the family, judging the political Right and the Parti Communiste Français as equally reactionary.The paper testified to the importance of international, indeed transnational activities of the far left in the early 1970s. It provided a formidable impulse for the gay liberation movement FHAR,and foreshadowed the first feminist paper Le Torchon Brûle. As such it was a crucial press conduit for American radical left forms and practices, spearheading a shift from gauchisme

to the growing counterculture. Tout! exemplified a brief, intense and fast-changing moment in French subcultural history and set new trends in left political journalism for the 1970

HISTORIES BY SIMON WEBB DURHAM HISTORIAN

THERE ARE THREE SIMON WEBB'S WRITING HISTORIES

THIS IS THE SELF PUBLISHED SIMON WEBB

About the Author
Simon Webb lives near the historic English city of Durham, and has published over fifty books, including fiction, non-fiction and poetry. Publisher is The Langley Press 

The Book of Esau: A Murder Mystery of Victorian Durham 

by Simon Webb  (Author)

1895: an enigmatic American has come to live in the English cathedral city of Durham. What is the nature of his hold over the widows and spinsters of the city? What is his interest in 'Tiger' Terris, the young Durham Light Infantry veteran? Is there a connection between the American and the strange ape-like creature seen down by the river? And more to the point, who killed the mysterious foreigner?

A tale of plumbing, elephants, photography, vegetarianism, and murder.

Crippen's Secret, or, The Doctor and the Demons
Oct 20, 2013 by Simon Webb

In 1910 an American 'doctor' called H.H. Crippen was hanged in London for the murder of his wife, Cora. Long regarded as a cut-and-dried case, recent DNA evidence suggests that Crippen may have been the innocent victim of a far-reaching conspiracy...


The London Vampires: A Gothic Tale in Verse
Mar 7, 2015 by Simon Webb

'Black-haired, white-skinned, they stalked the sleeping town,
And if the watchmen tried to knock them down,
They made a bloody feast of the patrol,
And left each constable without a soul.'

Was the Dark Lady of Shakespeare's sonnets a vampire? This darkly comic poem entertains the possibility, telling the story of of a darkly beautiful Elizabethan vampire who also turns up in modern London.


Mary Ann Cotton: Victorian Serial Killer Dec 31, 2015
by Simon Webb , Miranda Brown

A native of County Durham, Mary Ann Cotton is regarded as the most prolific female serial killer in British history.This book from Simon Webb and Miranda Brown re-tells her story, re-examines the evidence and includes a startling new theory about the so-called West Auckland Poisoner.



Though he features in the first of J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter books, Nicholas Flamel was a real person who lived in medieval Paris.

Simon Webb's new book attempts to reconstruct his life, and also looks into the legends that have attached to his name over the centuries. Was he an alchemist, could he make gold from mercury, and are Nicholas and his wife Perenelle still alive after over six hundred years?

Published by the Langley Press.



The Damnable Life and Deserved Death of Doctor Faustus Kindle Edition
by Anonymous (Author, Translator), Simon Webb (Editor)

The Damnable Life and Deserved Death of Doctor Faustus is the classic account of Johann Faust, the scholar who sold his soul to the devil in return for twenty-four years of wealth and power. Simon Webb’s edition includes the complete text, and his introduction speculates on the lasting appeal of the story, examines its sources, and describes how it influenced both Marlowe and Shakespeare.

The Book of Ashoka: Warrior Prince to Emperor of Peace

by Simon Webb, H.G. Wells, 


Macbeth (With Zombies)

Execution: A History of Capital Punishment in Britain

I FOUND A THIRD SIMON WEBB WRITING HISTORIES 

About the Author

Simon Webb has written for various newspapers and magazines, including True Detective magazine, and is the author of Unearthing London: The Ancient World Beneath the Metropolis.

Execution: A History of Capital Punishment in Britain
by Simon Webb
 Publisher: The History Press; 1 edition (January 1, 2012)
Judicial hanging is regarded by many as being the quintessential British execution. However, many other methods of capital punishment have been used in this country; ranging from burning, beheading, and shooting to crushing and boiling to death. Execution explores these types of executions in detail. Readers may be surprised to learn that a means of mechanical decapitation, the Halifax Gibbet, was being used in England five hundred years before the guillotine was invented. Boiling to death was a prescribed means of execution in this country during the Tudor period. From the public death by starvation of those gibbeted alive, to the burning of women for petit treason, this book examines some of the most gruesome passages of British history. This carefully researched, well-illustrated, and enthralling text will appeal to those interested in the history of British executions.

JACK THE RIPPER BOOKS BY SIMON WEBB

HISTORIES BY SIMON WEBB DURHAM HISTORIAN
THERE ARE THREE SIMON WEBB'S WRITING HISTORIES
THIS IS THE SELF PUBLISHED SIMON WEBB

About the Author
Simon Webb lives near the historic English city of Durham, and has published over fifty books, including fiction, non-fiction and poetry.
Publishes with TLP  The Langley Press



Absinthe Jack: Was Ernest Dowson Jack the Ripper? 

Nov 30, 2017 by Simon Webb
Aesthete, decadent poet, misogynist and violent drunk, Ernest Dowson has been long-listed as a Jack the Ripper suspect for nearly twenty years. Simon Webb's new book takes a fresh look at the evidence, and examines the possibility that Dowson's consumption of epic quantities of absinthe may have turned him from a woman-hating brawler into the terror of Whitechapel.



American Jack: Jack the Ripper and the United States 

Jun 30, 2017 by Simon Webb
The ultimate Ripper collection runs to over 550 pages and includes four complete books: 'American Jack', about the Ripper's links to the United States, books on the suspects Francis Thompson and Ernest Dowson, and 'Severin', a novel based on the story of the well-known suspect George Chapman. Among other suspects covered in the book are Francis Tumblety, James Maybrick, Prince Albert Victor, Neill Cream, James Kelly and Robert D'Onston Stephenson. 'A Jack the Ripper Omnibus' also includes new material that has never been published before.



Severin: A Tale of Jack the Ripper 
Jan 31, 2016 by Simon Webb
George Chapman, also known as Severin Klosowski, was a London poisoner who was hanged in 1903. During his trial, a number of people began to suspect that he was, or had been, Jack the Ripper. These people included Frederick Abberline, who had been an important detective on the Ripper case back in 1888. Abberline became convinced that Chapman was his man. This book takes Abberline's theory and runs with it.

Jack the Poet: Was Francis Thompson Jack the Ripper?

 Sep 30, 2017 by Simon Webb
Long regarded as a possible Jack the Ripper suspect, the Victorian poet Francis Thompson lived in London at the time of the Whitechapel murders, and may have had motive, means and opportunity to commit at least some of those horrific crimes. At one time, he even lived with a prostitute who subsequently disappeared. Considering known facts about Thompson's life and personality, and searching for clues in the darker corners of his poetry, Simon Webb's new book offers a balanced view of the case for Jack the Poet. Simon has also written 'American Jack', about the Ripper's links to the United States, and 'Severin', a Ripper novel.

A Jack the Ripper Omnibus 

Nov 30, 2017 by Simon Webb
The ultimate Ripper collection runs to over 550 pages and includes four complete books: 'American Jack', about the Ripper's links to the United States, books on the suspects Francis Thompson and Ernest Dowson, and 'Severin', a novel based on the story of the well-known suspect George Chapman. Among other suspects covered in the book are Francis Tumblety, James Maybrick, Prince Albert Victor, Neill Cream, James Kelly and Robert D'Onston Stephenson. 'A Jack the Ripper Omnibus' also includes new material that has never been published before.

LAMBTON WORM AND LAIR OF THE WHITE WORM

The Lambton Worm

Paperback – November 28, 2019 

by Simon Webb  (Author)

The tale of the 'Famous Lambton Worm' is the best-known of the many monster stories of the North of England. Simon Webb's book re-tells the story, speculates on its origins, and compares John Lambton's Worm to other local dragons such as the Sockburn Worm and the Laidley Worm of Spindlestone Heugh.Illustrated: includes the complete text of the Lambton Worm song.

Young Lambton loved a spot of fishing but when he cast his line into the lake, he wasn't expecting his catch to be a fat, slime-strung, squirming worm. And that was just the very beginning of his problems....
The terrible tale of the Lambton Worm is written by is written by poet and children's author Heather Harrison and told here by Tony Wilson.
This is just one of the tales from Springboard Stories, a magazine for primary teachers with stories at its heart.

IT IS ALSO THE BASIS OF THE KEN RUSSEL'S MOVIE BASED ON BRAM STOKERS 
STORY LAIR OF THE WHITE WORM

THIS SIMON WEBB wrote the history of the 
1919 General Strike in Britain 

About the Author

Simon Webb is the author of a number of non-fiction books, ranging from academic works on education to popular history. He works as a consultant on the subject of capital punishment to television companies and filmmakers and also writes for various magazines and newspapers; including the Times Educational Supplement, Daily Telegraph and the Guardian.

British Concentration Camps: A Brief History from 1900-1975

by Simon Webb

For many of us, the very expression ‘Concentration Camp’ is inextricably linked to Nazi Germany and the horrors of the Holocaust. The idea of British concentration camps is a strange and unsettling one. It was however the British, rather than the Germans, who were the chief driving force behind the development and use of concentration camps in the Twentieth Century.

The operation by the British army of concentration camps during the Boer War led to the deaths of tens of thousands of children from starvation and disease. More recently, slave-labourers confined in a nationwide network of camps played an integral role in Britain’s post-war prosperity. In 1947, a quarter of the country’s agricultural workforce were prisoners in labour camps.

BLOWS AGAINST THE EMPIRE 

The Suffragette Bombers: Britain's Forgotten Terrorists

by Simon Webb

In the years leading up to the First World War, the United Kingdom was subjected to a ferocious campaign of bombing and arson. Those conducting this terrorist offensive were members of the Women's Social and Political Union; better known as the suffragettes. 

The targets for their attacks ranged from St Paul's Cathedral and the Bank of England in London to theatres and churches in Ireland. The violence, which included several attempted assassinations, culminated in June 1914 with an explosion in Westminster Abbey.

Simon Webb explores the way in which the suffragette bombers have been airbrushed from history, leaving us with a distorted view of the struggle for female suffrage. Not only were the suffragettes far more aggressive than is generally known, but there exists the very real and surprising possibility that their militant activities actually delayed, rather than hastened, the granting of the parliamentary vote to British women.

The Real World of Victorian Steampunk: Steam Planes and Radiophones

by Simon Webb

In the last few decades, steampunk has blossomed from being a rather obscure and little-known subgenre of science fiction into a striking and distinctive style of fashion, art, design and even music. It is in the written word however that steampunk has its roots and in this book Simon Webb explores and examines the real inventions which underpin the fantasy. In doing so, he reveals a world unknown to most people today.

The Real World of Victorian Steampunk shows the Victorian era to have been a surprising place; one of steam-powered airplanes, fax machines linking Moscow and St Petersburg, steam cars traveling at over 100 mph, electric taxis and wireless telephones. It is, in short, the nineteenth century as you have never before seen it; a steampunk extravaganza of anachronistic technology and unfamiliar gadgets. Imagine Europe spanned by a mechanical internet; a telecommunication system of clattering semaphore towers capable of transmitting information across the continent in a matter of minutes. Consider too, the fact that a steam plane the size of a modern airliner took off in England in 1894.

Drawing entirely on contemporary sources, we see how little-known developments in technology have been used as the basis for so many steampunk narratives. From seminal novels such as The Difference Engine, through to the steampunk fantasy of Terry Pratchett’s later works, this book shows that steampunk is at least as much solid fact as it is whimsical fiction.

The Analogue Revolution: Communication Technology 1901–1914

by Simon Webb

We are all familiar with the digital revolution that has swept across the developed world in recent years. It has ushered in an age of smartphones, laptop computers and ready access to the internet. A little over a century ago, a similar explosion took place in the field of information and communication technology. This revolution was not digital but analogue, and it saw the birth of mass media such as newspapers, cinema and radio.

In The Analogue Revolution, Simon Webb examines the impact that developments in printing, photography, wireless telegraphy, gramophones and moving pictures had in the years preceding the First World War, and shows how the modern world was shaped by the media used to record it. From the first mass-circulation newspapers to cameras so cheap that everybody could afford them, from early experiments in radio broadcasting to cinema films in color, The Analogue Revolution charts the history of the first information revolution of the twentieth century. The parallels with the modern world are uncanny, ranging from anxiety about the use of new technology to distribute pornography, to worries about children losing interest in reading because they prefer to watch films.

For anybody wishing to understand the modern world, this book is an essential primer in the nature of information revolutions and the way in which they affect the world.

Post-War Childhood: Growing up in the not-so-friendly ‘Baby Boomer’ Years 

by Simon Webb (Author)

Many British baby boomers are very nostalgic about a supposed golden age; a vanished world when children were generally freer, happier and healthier than they are now. They wandered about all day; only returning home at teatime when they were hungry. Nobody worried about health and safety or 'stranger danger' in those days and no serious harm ever befell children as a result.

In Post-War Childhood, Simon Webb examines the facts and figures behind the myth of children's carefree lives in the post-war years, finding that such things as the freedom to roam the streets and fields came at a terrible price. In 1965, for example, despite there being far fewer cars in Britain, 45 times as many children were knocked down and killed on the roads as now die in this way each year.

Simon Webb presents a 'warts and all' portrait of British childhood in the years following the end of the Second World War. He demonstrates that contrary to popular belief, it was by any measure a far more hazardous and less pleasant time to be a child, than is the case in the twenty-first century.

The Fearless Benjamin Lay: The Quaker Dwarf Who Became the First Revolutionary Abolitionist

Quaker Comet: Benjamin Lay: Anti-Slavery Pioneer 

by Roberts Vaux (Author), Simon Webb (Editor)

Born near Colchester in 1681, Benjamin Lay overcame disability to become an outspoken early opponent of slavery, both in Barbados and later in Pennsylvania.'Quaker Comet' includes the pioneering biography of 'Little Benjamin' by Roberts Vaux, an introduction, notes, and autobiographical extracts from Lay's 1737 book on the evils of the African slave trade. The book ends with a selection of early texts relating to Quakerism and slavery.

The Fearless Benjamin Lay: The Quaker Dwarf Who Became the First Revolutionary Abolitionist 

by Marcus Rediker  (Author)

The little-known story of an eighteenth-century Quaker dwarf who fiercely attacked slavery and imagined a new, more humane way of life

In The Fearless Benjamin Lay, renowned historian Marcus Rediker chronicles the transatlantic life and times of a singular man—a Quaker dwarf who demanded the total, unconditional emancipation of all enslaved Africans around the world. Mocked and scorned by his contemporaries, Lay was unflinching in his opposition to slavery, often performing colorful guerrilla theater to shame slave masters, insisting that human bondage violated the fundamental principles of Christianity. He drew on his ideals to create a revolutionary way of life, one that embodied the proclamation “no justice, no peace.”

Lay was born in 1682 in Essex, England. His philosophies, employments, and places of residence—spanning England, Barbados, Philadelphia, and the open seas—were markedly diverse over the course of his life. He worked as a shepherd, glove maker, sailor, and bookseller. His worldview was an astonishing combination of Quakerism, vegetarianism, animal rights, opposition to the death penalty, and abolitionism.

While in Abington, Philadelphia, Lay lived in a cave-like dwelling surrounded by a library of two hundred books, and it was in this unconventional abode where he penned a fiery and controversial book against bondage, which Benjamin Franklin published in 1738. Always in motion and ever confrontational, Lay maintained throughout his life a steadfast opposition to slavery and a fierce determination to make his fellow Quakers denounce it, which they finally began to do toward the end of his life.

With passion and historical rigor, Rediker situates Lay as a man who fervently embodied the ideals of democracy and equality as he practiced a unique concoction of radicalism nearly three hundred years ago. Rediker resurrects this forceful and prescient visionary, who speaks to us across the ages and whose innovative approach to activism is a gift, transforming how we consider the past and how we might imagine the future.

Review

“Rediker provides a valuable addition to abolitionist historiography. . . . A concise, solid biography of ‘the first revolutionary abolitionist,’ a diminutive man who was decades ahead of his time.”

—Kirkus Reviews

“Rediker adroitly describes nuances of the Quaker faith’s evolution. . . . Lay’s farsightedness and extensive advocacy deserves to be remembered.”

—Publishers Weekly

“Highly recommended, especially for public and college library biography collections.”

—Midwest Book Review

“Lay, a lover of books, would have appreciated this one, less for the praise lavished on him than the attention given his message. As Mr. Rediker says, ‘Benjamin’s prophecy speaks to our time.’”

—The Pittsburgh Post–Gazette

“Admirers of Marcus Rediker’s splendid The Slave Ship will be delighted by this historian’s new book. Sailor, pioneer of guerilla theater, and a man who would stop at nothing to make his fellow human beings share his passionate outrage against slavery, Benjamin Lay has long needed a modern biographer worthy of him, and now he has one.”

—Adam Hochschild

“A modern biography of the radical abolitionist Benjamin Lay has long been overdue. With the sure hand of an eminent historian of the disfranchised, Marcus Rediker has brought to life the wide-ranging activism of this extraordinary Quaker, vegetarian dwarf in a richly crafted book. In fully recovering Lay’s revolutionary abolitionist vision, Rediker reveals its ongoing significance for our world.”

—Manisha Sinha, author of The Slave’s Cause: A History of Abolition

“The unswerving eighteenth-century abolitionist Benjamin Lay, maligned when not ignored for many generations, has at last found his sympathetic biographer. In this captivating, must-read book, Marcus Rediker shows that Lay’s disfigured body contained a mind of steel and a heart overflowing with compassion for victims of the Atlantic slave trade. Lay’s place in the annals of American reform is now secure. If you’re ready to have your mind changed about received wisdom on the eccentric, lonely early abolitionist who blazed the way for later antislavery stalwarts, read this brilliantly researched and passionately written book.”

—Gary Nash, author of Warner Mifflin, Unflinching Quaker Abolitionist

About the Author

Marcus Rediker (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania) is Distinguished Professor of Atlantic History at the University of Pittsburgh and Senior Research Fellow at the Collège d’études mondiales in Paris. He is the author of numerous prize-winning books, including The Many-Headed Hydra (with Peter Linebaugh), The Slave Ship, and The Amistad Rebellion. He produced the award-winning documentary film Ghosts of Amistad (Tony Buba, director), about the popular memory of the Amistad rebellion of 1839 in contemporary Sierra Leone.

KIM SIMMONDS & SAVOY BROWN LIVE

DUH OH

Inequality is bad for society, economic prosperity good

WHICH IS WHY THE PARASITE CLASS NEEDS TO BE EXPROPRIATED AND OUR COMMON WEALTH SHARED COLLECTIVELY 

by Otto-von-Guericke-Universität Magdeburg

Prof. Dr. Jan Delhey is the first author the Chair for Macrosociology at the University of Magdeburg Credit: Harald Krieg

Rich countries vary a lot when it comes to health and social problems. A comparison of social ills ranging from intentional homicides to obesity rates in 40 rich societies shows that Asian and European countries fare much better than Anglophone and Latin American countries. The most problem-ridden countries are Trinidad and Tobago, Uruguay and the United States. The positive end of the list is headed by Japan, South Korea and Singapore, followed by Iceland, Norway and Switzerland. Germany ranks 15th just behind Austria. While economic inequality is associated with more social ills, economic prosperity dampens them.

These are the results of a study conducted by a team of sociologists at the Otto von Guericke University Magdeburg (OvGU) in Germany. Prof. Jan Delhey and Leonie Steckermeier (MA) investigate for 40 high-income countries from all world regions, whether income inequality and national prosperity can help understand why some countries are more problem-ridden than others.

In a cross-national comparison, countries with a bigger income gap between rich and poor indeed have more social ills. Inequality is bad for society as it goes along with weaker social bonds between people, which in turn makes health and social problems more likely. At the same time, richer countries have less social ills. Economic prosperity goes along with stronger social bonds in society and thereby makes health and social problem less likely. "This is the main reason behind the geographic pattern we found, with social ills being more widespread in the Americas and the Anglophone New World countries, and less widespread in European and particularly Asian countries," explains Jan Delhey, first author of the research paper.

The good news is that in most countries social ills improved somewhat between 2000 and 2015, although it is difficult to pin down why. In Europe at least, rising prosperity seems to have led to better societies with less social ills, but for the non-European countries it remains unclear why levels of social ills changed. "This shows that other factors beyond income inequality and economic prosperity play a role in the development of social ills, too. Still, our results prompt scholars as well as the public to re-think the widespread negative image of contemporary society. In many countries, there is small progress towards a better society with less social ills," explains Leonie Steckermeier, co-author of the study.

The empirical analysis was based on a set of six social ills, namely low life expectancy, infant mortality, and obesity as health issues, and intentional homicides, teenage pregnancy, and imprisonment rate as social problems. The data were compiled from international sources such as the Worldbank and the World Health Organization for the years from 2000 to 2015. The structure of the compiled dataset allows to compare health and social problems between countries and across time. The research was carried out as part of the project "Inequality, Status Anxiety and Social Ills" at the Chair for Macrosociology at the OvGU and funded by the German Science Foundation (DFG).

Income inequality fuels status anxiety and sexualisation, research shows

---

More information: Jan Delhey et al, Social Ills in Rich Countries: New Evidence on Levels, Causes, and Mediators, Social Indicators Research (2019). DOI: 10.1007/s11205-019-02244-3

Journal information: Social Indicators Research 

Provided by Otto-von-Guericke-Universität Magdeburg

I POSTED THIS BECAUSE OF THE NIFTY NASA GIF 

For hottest planet, a major meltdown, study shows

by Pat Brennan, NASA

Artist's rendering of a "hot Jupiter" called KELT-9b, the hottest known exoplanet - s