Introduction

Abstract

Arguing that the resistance in France during the Second World War was always transnational in important ways, this piece identifies some of the recent scholarship that has expanded both the temporal and geographic parameters of the French Resistance. It introduces some of the key themes of this collection of articles and underscores the important contributions made by the participating authors. As these articles reveal, we can find sites of transnational resistance by looking at the relationship between the Allies and the resistance, the role that non-French denizens played in the resistance, the politics of cultural resistance, and the circulation of downed Anglo-American aircrews in Europe.Where is war? This question, posed explicitly in Hilary Footitt's recent article about transnational spaces and the translation of identities in those spaces, has been present, if only implicitly, in a great deal of research over the past twenty years. 1 Historians of war have been dealing with the instability of spaces of war and peace for some time now, with the recognition that war zones are not neatly defined by borders. Similarly, we now know that the temporal parameters of war change depending on the perspective and, indeed, that structural differences between wartime and peacetime are not always clear. 2 It is no coincidence that these kinds of questions have been raised in the context of widening interest in transnational or global histories, and it is unsurprising that historians are mobilizing war as a way to investigate the circulation of ideas, materials, and people across physical and temporal boundaries. Historians of resistance during the Second World War are also starting to highlight these same themes in their work.Whereas early histories focused on specific resistance groups, individual resisters, or the resistance activities of one region, newer work has expanded our focus. We continue to use the term French Resistance, but