History Does Not Repeat Itself

I have read Professor Binion’s provocative essay, “De Gaulle as Pétain” with a good deal of interest and, frankly, a great deal of skepticism. I should stress at the outset that I am not sold on psycho-historical approaches, and I have serious reservations concerning the application of Levi-Strauss’s structuralist paradigms to complex events from recent history. One of the criticisms of structuralism is, of course, its lack of historicity as well as its schematization of complicated human circumstances and situations. Because Professor Binion is dependant precisely on these two approaches in making his arguments, he simplifies and indeed skews the historical record in comparing Pétain’s coming to power in summer 1940 after France’s defeat at the hands of the Nazis, and de Gaulle’s return to power in 1958 at the height of the Algerian crisis.