Valerie Deacon
Adjunct Professor of History at York University
- B.A. University of Winnipeg
- M.A. University of Victoria
- Ph.D. York University
Dr. Valerie Deacon is in the process of revising her manuscript for publication with the University of Toronto Press. This book, The extreme right goes to war: Rightists in the French Resistance, examines postwar narratives of the French experience during the Second World War, which suggested that the political right was responsible for the creation of the collaborative Vichy regime and that members of the political left were valiantly fighting to re-establish basic freedoms, restore human rights, and rid France of the occupying forces. While most scholars have suggested that the Resistance was a product of republican values, emphasizing the commitment to human rights and equality, she argues that there was a significant part of the Resistance movements that was not born of those traditions and whose motivations for resistance were not necessarily wedded to any democratic heritage.
Dr. Deacon’s new research project examines, through the lens of French anti-Americanism and American Francophobia, the relationship between the internal Resistance and the Anglo-American allies during and after the war. She is currently teaching a course on Europe since 1945 at York University.